It is bounded on the east by Diss hundred, on the south by the river Ouse, that parts Norfolk and Suffolk, on the west by Thetford, and on the north by Shropham hundred, which is divided from it by the river that runs from Quidenham Mere to Thetford; the superiour liberty, as to the game, and many other privileges, belongs to his Grace the Duke of Norfolk, as lord paramount of the hundred, all which is in his peculiar liberty and jurisdiction called the Duke of Norfolk's Liberty, the original of which you shall have under Lopham; and as for the rest of the owners of it, I shall refer you to
Kenninghall
A town of large extent, and great antiquity, so called from [Cyning] which in Saxon signifies a King, so that Cyning or Kenninghad, signifies the King's House, and according to the etymology, it hath been a seat of the East-Anglian Kings, who are said to have had a castle here, which indeed seems true; the site of it is now called the Candle-Yards; (because the offices for that purpose were built in it, when Thomas, the great Duke of Norfolk, built the palace, this place being distant enough, to hinder the smell reaching it;) it is southwest of the palace about a furlong, being a square of four acres, encompassed with a spacious trench, at each corner is a mount, but that to the south-east is much the largest; the manor-house continued through all its changes in this place, till the Duke pulled it down, and built that stately house at the distance before mentioned, which was after called Kenninghall Palace, or Place; it fronted east and west, and was built in form of an (H), having a porter's lodge, and all things else in the grandest manner. It was situated in the midst of a large park, which contained 700 acres, well stocked with deer, the north side guarded with woods and groves, being distant at least a mile from the town, which lies westward. At the Duke's attainder it was seized by the King, and settled on the then Lady Mary, who kept her court here. To this castle (as Stow calls it) she removed from Hunsdon in Hertfordshire, and hither resorted to her several lords and knights of this county, as Sir John Shelton, Sir Henry Bedingfield, Sir Henry Jerningham, and others, at the death of Edward VI from whence they went to Framlingham castle. Afterwards it was in Queen Elizabeth's hands, who was often here; she it was that ordered her tenant Chapman, who then lived in Fersfield lodge, to lay out the way now called Chapman's Entry, out of her own ground, the old way being so strait that the Queen could not conveniently pass through it; it is now disused, and is called Queen Bess's Lane, from her being scratched with the brambles in riding through it, as tradition tells us. It continued in the Norfolk family as their capital seat in this county, till about 90 years since, when it was pulled down, and the materials sold for a trifle, with which great numbers of chimnies and walls in the neighbourhood are built, as is evident from the Mowbrays and Arundels arms which are upon the bricks. Spelman, in his Icenia, hath nothing more of this town, than that it was the seat of some of the chiefest barons. That it belonged to the Crown in the most early times is plain, for the Confessor had it in his own hands, it being then worth 10l. a year and 5 sextaries of honey; but it was risen by the Conqueror's time to 24
