An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

126 UTOBIOGRAPH This spiing I was foolish enough to build a picturesque double cottage on the allotments I had bought at Benspit Hole, the same day I had bought my Lammas cottage. I built them quite cheaply, £315, including the well, and they are excellent cottages, but only pay me about 2 per cent. 011 my outlay, without reckoning in the land wasted, and I ·ubsequeutly insi ·ted 011 their being called " Rye's Folly.'' On the 7th March I continued to excavate at St. Leonard's Priory, and found a good piece of string course and traces of the entrance gatehouse next Denny's house (see illustra– tion on p. opposite). ext day I met Dr. Starling at Hight's for the fir t time, and soon after bought, through Clayton, the orchard and cottages opposite my Lammas property. The ·weather bad Leen so bad that I didn't get a tricycle ride till the 12th March. At the end of the month I heard Leathes Prior'· lecture on the Boer War. The wind which had been bitterly, South or South East, changed the last day of tbe month lo the North, and we got som rain at last. For Easter D.M.R. and R.H. joined me at Lammas, but only for a few daJ·:;. 16th and 17th April we had heavy snow. Dr. Beusley's bauquet was at the faid's Head on 30th April and a very good one too, the Bishop and Dean, Dr. J essopp and others were there, but the peeches,;; ere espec– ially poor. A red-faced parson who sat next to me not inaptly described one of the speakers a a "vuloar little pothouse speaker." On 1st May I explored the "Gidding Heath " trenche on 1\fousebold 1 disclosed by tbe big Mousehold map, and they afterwards formed the subject of a paper. Still pistol booting, I shot fairly w 11, making 39 in 10 shots. On 12th of May I persuaded Major Fitch to restore the rare Grammar chool 01ation to the Norwich Grammar School, and on the 25th I bought 9 and 11 Wensum Street, thinking they might come in handy if the .. l\f aid's Head'' ever wanted enlarging. At the meeting of the Norfolk and Norwich Archreo– logical Societ) all my five new rules practically revivifying the society were pa ed without a di entient voice, aud were as promptly broken by the officials, and I soon found out that il ·was like punching a big lump of putty to attempt to make the Society a live one. By this time I had got the first part of the Calendar of