On Our Left We See Walsingham, An Ancient Town, Famous For The Old
Ruins Of A Monastery Of Note There, And The Shrine Of Our Lady, As
Noted As That Of St. Thomas-A-Becket At Canterbury, And For Little
Else.
Near this place are the seats of the two allied families of the
Lord Viscount Townsend and Robert Walpole,
Esq.; the latter at this
time one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury and Minister of
State, and the former one of the principal Secretaries of State to
King George, of which again.
From hence we went to Lynn, another rich and populous thriving
port-town. It stands on more ground than the town of Yarmouth, and
has, I think, parishes, yet I cannot allow that it has more people
than Yarmouth, if so many. It is a beautiful, well built, and well
situated town, at the mouth of the River Ouse, and has this
particular attending it, which gives it a vast advantage in trade;
namely, that there is the greatest extent of inland navigation here
of any port in England, London excepted. The reason whereof is
this, that there are more navigable rivers empty themselves here
into the sea, including the washes, which are branches of the same
port, than at any one mouth of waters in England, except the Thames
and the Humber. By these navigable rivers, the merchants of Lynn
supply about six counties wholly, and three counties in part, with
their goods, especially wine and coals, viz., by the little Ouse,
they send their goods to Brandon and Thetford, by the Lake to
Mildenhall, Barton Mills, and St. Edmundsbury; by the River Grant
to Cambridge, by the great Ouse itself to Ely, to St. Ives, to St.
Neots, to Barford Bridge, and to Bedford; by the River Nyne to
Peterborough; by the drains and washes to Wisbeach, to Spalding,
Market Deeping, and Stamford; besides the several counties, into
which these goods are carried by land-carriage, from the places,
where the navigation of those rivers end; which has given rise to
this observation on the town of Lynn, that they bring in more coals
than any sea-port between London and Newcastle; and import more
wines than any port in England, except London and Bristol; their
trade to Norway and to the Baltic Sea is also great in proportion,
and of late years they have extended their trade farther to the
southward.
Here are more gentry, and consequently is more gaiety in this town
than in Yarmouth, or even in Norwich itself--the place abounding in
very good company.
The situation of this town renders it capable of being made very
strong, and in the late wars it was so; a line of fortification
being drawn round it at a distance from the walls; the ruins, or
rather remains of which works appear very fair to this day; nor
would it be a hard matter to restore the bastions, with the
ravelins, and counterscarp, upon any sudden emergency, to a good
state of defence:
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