Addenda et corrigenda

ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA.

Page xiii. The liberty of St. Edmund no longer returns a distinct grand jury. That privilege was abolished in the summer of 1839, on the removal of the assizes once a year to Ipswich.

Beccles.

Besides the fine estate on the fen and common, the town of Beccles is possessed of 102a. 0r. 1p. of land, let in 1846 for £250. This property has been held and managed by feoffees from a very ancient date, though no records are existing to show how and when the town first acquired it. The proceeds are annually applied for parochial purposes. An old feoffment book, commencing in 1636, and ending in 1757, containing the receipts and disbursements of the rents arising from this property, has been discovered in a lumber-room in the house of Thomas Farr, Esq., since the publication of the account of Beccles. The names of many families still residing in the town and its environs appear among the lists of feoffees, as those of Crowfoot, Elmy, Leman, Farr, and Rede, &c. Its pages contain some very curious notices illustrative of the manners and incidents of the times, especially those connected with the civil war in the reign of Charles I., when Beccles furnished soldiers for the expedition against the Scots in 1639.

From the next entry it would appear that Burton had not sustained the honour of Beccles in the Scottish wars so successfully as was probably desired, for we find him returning sick, and deprived of his sword.

Notwithstanding this misadventure, Burton seems to have sustained some "apostolic blows and knocks" from his presbyterian opponents, as the next item proves.

From the same record we gather that Beccles paid £1. 15s. 7d. towards the ship-rate, raised in 1639. In 1649, John Elmy, an ancestor, in all probability, of the family of that name, lately extinct in the male line, at Beccles, received £2. 11s. 6d. for going to the siege of Colchester, then held, in favour of the King, by those gallant royalists, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle. In the following year, 1650, the town participated in the benefit of democratic government by paying £2. 6s. as a quarter's rate towards maintaining the Parliamentarian army.

There appears from the same authority to have been a market cross formerly at Beccles, for, in 1639, the feoffees paid a considerable sum towards its reparation.

Upon the rebuilding of Beccles jail, about forty years since, the feoffees granted a lease of the site, which was part of their estate, for a term of nine hundred and ninetynine years.

Weston.

Page 98.—After passing from the Garneys, the manor of Weston became the estate of the Wards of Bixley, near Norwich. The court books commence in 1694. In 1704, Sir Edward Ward was lord. He married Barbara Gooch, who survived him, and was lady of this manor in 1721. Sir Edward had one son, Edward, who married a Miss Randall. He died, leaving two sons, Edward and Randall, and one daughter, Susanna, who were successively owners of the manor. Susanna Ward was heiress of Sir Randall Ward, who survived his brother Edward. About 1760 she married the Earl of Roseberry, and died in a year or two afterwards. The Earl then became, and continued, lord of the manor of Weston until about 1809, when he sold it to Thomas Farr, Esq., of Beccles.

Flixton.

Page 207, line 2.—For 'Oxford' read 'Cambridge.'

Gisleham.

Page 245, line 20.—For 'March' read 'January.'

Page 248, line 13.—For 'within' read 'without.'

Fritton.

Page 358.—Since the account of Fritton church has been printed, I have been favoured with the following note from the Rev. J. Cubitt, the Rector: "If not too late, I should feel obliged if you will insert under the head of Fritton, that the anomalous wooden pedestal and silver bowl for a font have been supplanted by a Norman font in stone, a copy of the one at Hartland, Devonshire, as detailed in the Oxford illustrations of baptismal fonts."

Printed By W. Hughes, King's Head Court, Gough square.