Framlingham, a town pleasantly seated on a clay hill, near the spring of the river Ore, which rising in the hills on the north, passes through the town and falls into the sea to the southward of Orford. Its name, which is of Saxon original, signifies the habitation of strangers. It is a large ancient town, pretty well built, in a healthy air and fruitful Soil, and has a large stately church, built of black flint, with a steeple upwards of a hundred feet high. The body of the church is 63 feet in length, 48 in breadth, and 44 high; and the chancel is 37 feet high, six feet long, and 27 broad. In the aisles lie buried several of the earls and dukes of Norfolk, and others of the nobility. There is in particular a curious, monument for Thomas Howard, the third duke of Norfolk, who died in the year 1554; another for Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond and Somerset, the natural son of Henry the Eighth, and another for Henry Howard, earl of Surry.

Sir Robert Hitcham founded a free-school here, with a salary of 40l. a year to the master, to teach 40 of the poorest children of the town to read, write, and cast accompts; and 10l. was allowed to each as an apprentice fee. There are also two almshouses in Framlingham; one founded in pursuance of the will of the above Sir Robert Hitcham, for twelve of the poorest persons in the town, each of whom is allowed two shillings every week, and forty shillings every year, for a gown and firing: these are to attend morning and evening prayers at church, and therefore Sir Robert left 20l. a year to a clergyman, to perform this duty, and 5l. a year for the clerk and sexton. The other almshouse was founded by Thomas Mills, a Baptist minister, for eight poor persons, who are allowed half-a-crown a week, an outward garment, and thirty shillings each for firing.

Framlingham has a market on Saturdays, and is situated 88 miles from London. It consisted, according to the late population act, of 461 houses, and 2327 inhabitants.

Here is a castle, a very ancient structure, said to have been constructed by Redwald, the most powerful king of the East Angles, who kept his court at Rendlesham, in this hundred. It was one of the seats of St. Edmunde, the king and martyr, who fled hither from Dunwich, when pursued by the Danes. Hither, likewise, they followed him, and laid siege to the castle; when he being hard pressed, and having no hopes of succour, endeavoured to escape; but, being overtaken in his flight, was beheaded at Hoxne, or Hoxon; from whence, long after his corpse was removed, and interred at Bury; the castle being taken, remained, as it is said, fifty years in the possession of the Danes.

William the Conqueror, his son Rufus, or according to others, Henry the First, gave this castle to Roger Bigod, by whose son Hugh it was either rebuilt or much repaired, having been dismantled in the year 1176, by order of King henry the Second. This Hugh Bigod was created Earl of Norfolk by King Stephen, as a reward for having testified upon oath, before the Archbishop of Canterbury and others, that Henry the First had, on his death-bed, nominated Stephen for his successor to the crown of England, in preference to his daughter Maud.

In the possession of the Bigods it continued till the twenty-fifth of Edward the First; when that family being extinct, it reverted to the crown, and was by that king given to his second son, Thomas de Brotherton, earl of Norfolk, arid marshal of England, who repaired it, as appeared by his arms set up in divers parts of the building. On his decease it came to his two daughters, Margaret and Alice; the latter married Edward de Montacute, who, upon the division of the estate, had, in his part, this castle and the demesnes thereof. He left it to his daughter Joan, who, marrying William de Ufford, earl of Suffolk, carried it into that family; from whence it came to the Mowbrays, dukes of Norfolk, who sometime resided here. From the Mowbrays it descended to the Howards, earls and afterwards dukes of Norfolk. After them it was granted to the de Veres, earls of Oxford; from whence it returned to the Howards, and was, by Theophilus, earl of Suffolk, sold, together with the manor and demesnes, to Sir Robert Hitcham, attorney-general in the reign of King Charles the First; who, by his will, dated in August, 1636, devised the castle, manor, and lordship of Framlingham, together with the manor of Saxted, being then of the yearly value of one thousand pounds, to the masters and fellows of Pembroke-hall, in Cambridge; one hundred pounds per annum to be expended for the benefit of the college, and the remainder to be appropriated to charitable uses, for the emolument of the poor of the parishes of Framlingham and Debenham in this county, and those of Coggeshall in Essex.

This castle was a large, strong, and handsome building, fortified with a double ditch; its walls, which are fifty-four feet in height, and eight in thickness, inclose within their circuit an area of one acre, one rood, and eleven perches; and are flanked by thirteen square towers, which rise above them fourteen feet; two of these were watch-towers, and are called by Dr. Sampson, barbicans; who says they were, by the common people, corruptly called burganys.

This author, describing the castle, says, "It was inwardly furnished with buildings very commodious and necessary, able to receive and entertain many; in the first court was a deep well of excellent workmanship, composed with carved pillars, which supported a leaden roof, and, though out of repair, was in being anno 1651. In the same court also was a neat chapel, now wholly demolished, anno 1657, and transported into the highways.

"There were in the building diverse arms, some in stone, some in wood, to be seen anno 1654; as of Bigod, Brotherton, Segrave, and Mowbray; and under a window, largely carved and painted, were quarterly, the arms of St. Edward, king and confessor; and those of Brotherton, under a chapeau turned up ermine, supported by two white lions; for the bearing whereof, Thomas, Earl of Surrey, the son of Thomas, second Duke of Norfolk of that name, lost his head, in the thirty-eighth year of Henry the Eighth. Also on the hall-gate, fairly cut in stone, were the arms of Brotherton impaling Bourchier, quartered with Lovayne, supported by a lion and eagle. There were likewise an old door, a great iron ring, garnished with M. S. with ducal coronets thereon.

"On the west side of this castle spreadeth a large lake, which is reported to have been once navigable, and to have filled the double ditch of the castle; but it is now much less than it formerly was, being every day filled up with earth and sand, washed into it by heavy rains. People now call it the Mere. It is said that from hence cometh the river Ore, which emptieth itself (having taken in diverse other waters) into the sea at Orford.

"This castle had a draw-bridge, and a portcullis over the gate, which was the strongest tower; and beyond the bridge without was a half-moon of stone, about a man’s height, standing in 1657. There was on the east side a postern, with an iron gate, leading over a private bridge into the park, wherein the castle standeth, which was not long since thick beset with trees, as the stumps shew."

The chimneys, many of which are still standing in the towers of this castle, are worthy of observation, being curiously wrought into various figures with ground or rubbed bricks: indeed, the artificers of those days gave many extraordinary instances, how perfectly these materials might be worked into the different mouldings and ornaments of architecture.

In the year 1173, Queen Elinor, out of revenge (as it is supposed) for the matrimonial infidelities of her husband, Henry the Second, incited his son Henry, an ambitious and ungrateful youth, to raise a rebellion against his father in Normandy. He was assisted by the kings of France and Scotland, and joined by many of the barons, among whom was Robert, Earl of Leicester, who, crossing the sea with a body of French, and three (some say ten) thousand Flemings, landed at Walton, in this county, and was received by Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, into his castle of Framlingham. From hence they made frequent excursions, to the great annoyance of the neighbourhood, which they repeatedly laid under heavy contributions, robbing and despoiling all passengers, burning villages and castles, and committing divers other enormities; insomuch that Hugh Lucy, the chief justice of England, assisted by Humphrey de Bohun, attacked and defeated them in a pitched battle, fought at a place called St. Martin’s, at Farnham, near Bury St. Edmund’s. In this engagement, the Earl of Leicester and his wife, a lady of masculine spirit and deportment, were taken prisoners, together with many of the French; but the Flemings were, to a man, all either slain or drowned. Their bodies were afterwards buried in and about that village.

Henry having reduced his son to obedience, soon after returned to England, when he besieged, took, and dismantled this castle. Its owner, Hugh Bigod; obtained his pardon, on paying to the king four thousand marks; but the Earl of Leicester did not escape so easily, for he was conveyed to Roen, in Normandy; where he was closely confined; his castle at Leicester was demolished, the town burnt, its walls razed, and the inhabitants dispersed into other places.

Hither likewise, in the year 1553, Queen Mary retired, on notice being sent her, by the Earl of Arundel, of the death of her brother Edward the Sixth, and of the patent for the succession of the Lady Jane. She chose this place, not only as being near the sea, whereby she might easily escape to Flanders, but also because the great slaughter of Ket’s followers, by the Duke of Northumberland, in the late reign, made him, and consequently his party, extremely odious in the neighbourhood. The event justified her choice; for she was joined by almost all the inhabitants of this and the adjacent counties, who encamped near the castle, to the number of thirteen thousand men. From hence she set out for London, to take possession of the crown, relinquished by her unfortunate competitor. She was met on her way by the lady Elizabeth, at the head of a thousand horse which that princess had raised for her service.

In the year 1653, an act of parliament passed, settling and confirming the manors of Framlingham and Saxted, in the county of Suffolk, with the lands, tenements, and hereditaments thereunto belonging, devised by Sir Robert Hitcham, late serjeant-at-law, to certain charitable uses.

Framlingham was a few years ago the resort of a singular character, a kind of wandering bard, known in some parts of Suffolk by the name of James Chambers. He gained a precarious living by vending pamphlets, and not unfrequently selling his own effusions, which he had printed in cheap forms. Being favoured by the poorer sort of people, he often gained a hearty welcome, and sometimes a more grateful pecuniary return for his acrostics, &c. These, he said, were mostly suggested to him in the nights which he often passed in barns, sheds, or stables, as his aversion to a poor-house amounted to horror: he declared "the thought of such an abode was worse to him than death."

In the year 1810, a statement of his case being published in the Ipswich Journal, it excited a subscription from several persons of distinction and others; among these, the late Countess of Dysart, and the Duchess of Chandos, were contributors. In consequence of this, a cottage was hired for his residence; and his verses were to have been printed for his benefit; but all was unavailing; his love of rambling prevailed over every other consideration, and, after remaining in his new dwelling about two months, he deserted it, and the friends who had so kindly interfered in his behalf. He was some time after seen in a miserable shed at the back of Framlingham, and was in the daily habit of walking from that place to Soham, or some of the neighbouring villages. Some lines, descriptive of his situation and humble talents, when he was about Haverhill, were written by some person who felt for his misfortunes, viz.

Near yonder bridge that strides the rippling brook,

A hut once stood in a sequester’d nook,

Where Chambers lodg’d; tho’ not of gipsy race,

Yet, like that tribe, he often chang’d his place.

A lonely wand’rer he, whose squalid form

Bore the rude peltings of the wintry storm;

An hapless out-cast, on whose natal day

No star propitious beam’d a kindly ray;

By some malignant influence doom’d to roam,

The world’s wide dreary waste, and knew no home;

Yet heav’n, to cheer him as he pass’d along,

Infus’d in life’s sour cup the sweets of song;

On him an humble muse her favours shed,

And nightly musings earn’d his daily bread.

Meek, unassuming, modest shade! forgive

This frail attempt to make thy mem’ry live.

Minstrel! adieu! to me thy fate’s unknown:

Since last I saw thee many a year has flown,

Perhaps, lorn wretch! unfriended and alone,

In hovel vile thou gav’st thy final groan;

Clos’d the blear’d eye, ordain’d no more to weep,

And sunk, unheeded sunk, in death’s long sleep.

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FRAMLINGHAM is a market town of ancient date, on the river Ore, a considerable parish and the head of a petty sessional division and county court district, 7 miles west from Saxmundham, 11 north from the port of Woodbridge, 13 south-east from Eye, 19 north-north-east from Ipswich and 88 from London by road, in the North Eastern division of the county, Loes hundred, Plomesgate union, rural deanery of Loes, archdeaconry of Suffolk and diocese of Norwich. At the southern entrance of the town is the terminal station of the branch of the Great Eastern railway from Campsey Ashe, which places the town in connection with Woodbridge, Ipswich and London. The town is lighted with gas from the works in College road of the Gas Light and Coke Co. and is supplied with water from springs and wells. The church of St. Michael is a noble Perpendicular building of cut flint with stone dressings, consisting of chancel with aisles, nave, aisles, battlemented south porch and an embattled tower at the south-west angle 100 feet high, with bold buttresses and surrounded near the top of the belfry stage with a double banding of shields and lozenge ornaments, and crowned at each angle by a lion seiant; it contains a clock with chimes and 8 bells, each having an inscription: in the church is an altar tomb to the distinguished statesman, poet and warrior, Henry (Howard) Earl of Surrey K.G. beheaded 21 Jan. 1547, and his countess, Lady Frances Vere, daughter of John, 15th Earl of Oxford; there are others to two Duchesses of Norfolk and a damsel of the house; Thomas 3rd Duke of Norfolk K.G. ob. 18 July, 1554, and his daughter, Lady Mary Howard, wife of Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond K.G. natural son of Henry VIII.; there is also a large altar tomb, with arms and inscription, to Sir Robert Hitcham kt. Queen’s Attorney and Serjeant-at-law, and M.P. 1596 for West Looe and for Oxford, 1623—8, ob. 15 Aug. 1636: the clock was presented by Sir Henry Thompson kt. F.R.C.S. as a memorial of his father, a resident of the town: the organ is said to have been constructed by Tamar, of Peterborough: the church is now (1900) undergoing restoration; there are 700 sittings. The register dates from the year 1560. The living is a rectory, with that of Saxstead annexed, joint net yearly value £900, including 70 acres of glebe, with residence in the gift of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and held since 1885 by the Rev. James Holme Pilkington MA. formerly fellow of that college, and surrogate. The Unitarian meeting house was erected in 1703, and has a minister’s house attached: there are also Congregational & Free Methodist chapels, and a meeting room of the Plymouth Brethren.

The Cemetery of 1 ½ acres, in Fore street, is under the control of the Parish Council The Corn Exchance, adjoining the Crown hotel, is a large room, with an entrance on the Market hill, and contains stands for thirty members. A gala is held here on Whit Tuesday in lien of the fairs formerly held but now discontinued; business to a considerable extent is transacted. A market is held on Saturdays for corn and provisions. Framlingham Club and Reading Room, is in Station road, Alfred Wallows, secretary. The Farmers’ Club is held at the Crown hotel, and a Cycling Club meets at the Station hotel. The Foresters’ Hall, Albert road, erected in 1886, is a small edifice of red brick. The Public Hall, standing within the area of the castle, and formerly the workhouse, has lately been improved by the erection in it of the front of the organ gallery removed from the church. There are almshouses founded by Sir Robert Hitcham kt. for six men and six women, who each receive 6s. a week and coals; the men a coat and, the women a dress once a year. Mr. Thomas Mills, in 1709, founded an almshouse for eight poor people. The Castle, of which considerable remains exist, is on the north side of the town; the date of its erection is unknown, but it was probably commenced during the time of the Saxons: it incloses more than an acre of ground, and has 13 square turrets in sufficiently good preservation to give a tolerable idea of the original structure: the principal gateway, entered from a broad causeway, has above it on the south side the arms of Howard, Brotherton, Mowbray, Segrave and Braose quartered in one escutcheon with supporters and crest; in 1176 the castle was partly dismantled, but was afterwards restored and became one of the appanages of the powerful family of Howard, Dukes of Norfolk, one of whom, Thomas, 2nd Duke K.G. died here, 21 May, 1524. and was buried at Thetford priory; on the death of Edward VI. Queen Mary took refuge here; the interior was gutted by Sir Robert Hitcham kt. who erected with the materials the almshouses previously mentioned. The manors of Framlingham at the Castle and Saxtead belong to the Master and fellows of Pembroke College, Cambridge, as part of the gift of Sir Robert Hitcham kt. who purchased property here, in 1635, to the extent of £14,000: the custom of Borough English prevails here, under which the youngest son succeeds to copyholds in case of intestacy. The principal landowners are the trustees of Sir Robert Hitcham, Capt. Frederic Snowden Corrance, of Parham. Hall, and the trustees of the late Duke of Hamilton and Brandon (d. 1895). The area is 4,683 acres of land and 5 of water; rateable value, £8,474; the population in 1891 was 2,525.

Petty Sessions are held at the Court house, Bridge st. every alternate Saturday at 11 a.m. The following places are in the division:-Ashfield-with-Thorpe, Badingham, Bedfield, Brandeston, Bruisyard, Cransford, Cretingham, Debenham, Dennington, Earl Soham, Easton, Framlingham, Framsden, Great Glemham, Little Glemham, Hacheston, Hoo, Kenton, Kettleburgh, Letheringham, Marlesford, Monewden, Monk Soham, Parham, Pettaugh, Rendham, Saxtead, Stratford Saint Andrew, Swefling, Tannington, Winston.

PLACES OF WORSHIP, with times of service.

St. Michael’s Church, Rev. James Holme Pilkington MA. rector; 8 & 10.45 a.m. & 3.15 & 7 p.m.; week days, daily 8 a.m.; Fridays, 7.15 p.m.

Congregational, Fore street, Rev. Henry A. Todd; 10.30 а.m. & 6.30 p.m.; Wed. 7 p.m.

The Brethren, Albert place; 10.30 a.m. & 6.30 p.m.

Unitarian, Bridge street, Rev. Alfred Amey; 11 a.m. & 6.30 p.m.

United Methodist Free Church, Albert place, Rev. John Hanmond; 10.30 a.m. & 6.30 p.m.

COLLEGE & SCHOOLS.

Framlingham College, founded in 1864, as a memorial to H.R.H, the Prince Consort K.G. who died at Windsor Castle, 14 Dec. 1861, at a first cost of upwards of £25,000, & incorporated by Royal Charter, was opened 10 April, 1865, & is a noble edifice in the Gothic style, from designs by Mr. Frederick Peck, architect, crowning the summit of a hill & standing in the midst of its own grounds of 19 acres, in a healthy & pleasant situation, about 10 minutes walk from the Framlingham station, on the Great Eastern railway: the principal facade includes a clock tower, & the buildings comprise a chapel, a dining hall for 300 boys, chemical laboratory, library, gymnasium, carpenter’s shop, swimming & tepid plunge baths &c. & residence for the headmaster: a stained window was placed in the chapel in 1883 by the boys, four others having since been added, & on the terrace in front of the principal entrance is a statue by Durham of the Prince Consort, 8 feet in height, placed on a pedestal of granite, & presented by Sir Thomas Lucas, at a cost of £1,000: the College is a centre for the Cambridge Local Examinations, & is managed by a body of 26 governors.

Under a scheme for the management of the Hitcham foundation by the Endowed Schools Commissioners, the old schools, established by Sir Robert Hitcham & Mr. Thomas Mills, have been closed & pew ones built & are under the management of 7 governors.

Elementary School, with residence for master, College road, built in 1879, for 153 boys, 153 girls & 123 infants; average attendance, 139 boys, 107 girls & 85 infants.