A HISTORY OF NORFOLK tainly an ancient road and might be Roman. The eastern part, from Downham Market to Caister, 40 miles in length, is a much more un- satisfactory matter. A piece of old road has been noted at Hethersett, five miles west of Caister, but its Roman character has never been proved and it stands entirely alone.* The eighteenth century writers carried the road right on to the east coast at Happisburgh, but this is the wildest fancy. 5. The Peddar's Way. The Peddar's Way — Norfolk dialect for the Pedlar's Way — runs through the Eastern uplands of Norfolk in a south-south-easterly direction from the very north to the very south of the county, a distance of some 40 miles. It is traceable nearly the whole way by the straightness of certain modern roads and the straight lines of certain parish boundaries. It is said by most writers to commence at Holme, a village near the coast about 3 miles north-east of Hunstanton, but for 6 miles its course is not certain. From Fring to Castleacre (14 miles) it is still in use, and for 6 miles south of Fring it forms a parish boundary. South of Castleacre it can be traced as a road and the parish boundary of SwafFham and Sporle, and further south as the boundary of Tottington, East Wretham, Bridgham and Brettenham parishes, and occasionally as a road. On Galley Hill, a mile north of Wretham rail- way station, its direction becomes slightly more southerly, and it crosses the Little Ouse into Suffolk in Riddlesworth parish.^ In Suffolk it is less easily traceable : it appears to run towards the Roman remains at Stow- langtoft, but its further course is doubtful. It is in some respects a puzzling road. Though several Roman sites are near its course and one, that of Fring (p. 297), is just at the point where it becomes uncertain, it can hardly have been constructed only for these sites. It has been sug- gested that it was intended to provide communication with Lincolnshire by means of a ferry from Holme to Wainfleet or Skegness. This is hardly credible. The mouth of the Wash between the places named is more than I 2 miles wide and its navigation is dangerous and difficult. Even an antiquary, when it came to the test of trial, would shrink from such a trajectus. We may rather incline to believe that the Peddar's Way has some relation to the fort at Brancaster, a little more than four miles west of Holme. It is true that it cannot be traced there and that there is no apparent reason, geographical or other, why it should not have gone there and be traceable thither. But there is no other known road 1 For Hethersett see the Index. For the Fen road, supposed to be first visible at Denver, see William Dugdale's //;//ory 19/" /OT^an^iw^ (London, 1662 and 1772), pp. 174, 175 ; letter by Dugdale to Sir Thos. Browne of November, 1658, in Browne's Correspondence ; 'journal of the British Archao- hpcal Association, xxxv. 265 ; Cambridge Antiquarian Communications, iv. 205 ; Samuel Wells, Hist, of the Drainage oj Bedford Level (London, 1830), i. 61 ; E. M. Beloe, The Great Fen Road (Lynn, 1889), an account of excavations, read to Cambridge Antiq. Society, November i8th, 1889. Babington in his Ancient Cambridgeshire (ed. 2, p. 53) says he saw traces of the road at Denver in 1853 ; see Cambr. Antiq. Society's Reports of May 22, 1854, p. 6 ; May 24, 185 5, p. 10. 2 It is so often marked wrong in the maps that I have described its course more fiilly than would otherwise be needed. Gough (edition of Camden, Introduction) takes it to Ely, and Babington to Mildenhall, but both views are impossible. Mr. Beloe discusses the road in the Cambridge Antiq. Society's Communications (ix. 77-95), and seems to consider it British. The course marked on his map differs somewhat from that which I have pointed out. 302
