An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY had a weakness it was to bring hordes of dogs of all sorts to the boathouses. The weather was so bad this year that I never got a ride till the 23rd March. On the 26th, H. H. Hall (since so prominent a member of the local Prehistoric Society), pointed out to me a mass of Roman masonry by the river side at Lakenham, on which I got the Rev. H. Dukinfield Astley to write a descriptive paper on it published in Norfolk Antiquarian Miscellany (n.s.), i., p. 39. The same day I made the acquaintance of a delightful old man, Mr. Henry Cooper, of Lakenham, who had been born in 1825, when his father was 73 years old, which easily beats the much vaunted Coke record. He was full of reminiscences, but only lived a few years longer, dying in 1908, aged 83. By the 2nd April my wife was sufficiently recovered to come over to Lammas with me to 1 unch. About this time I was working with R. J. W. Purdy at Hautbois Castle and the prehistoric mount at Burgh by Aylsham, and also by myself completing the "History of the Bethel Hospital," which had been begun by Sir F. Bateman. This I agreed to finish if the authorities would let me print as an appendix a most interesting series of depositions I had found at the Castle relating to the Royalist rising of 1648 and the "Great Blow" which happened near the site of the Bethel when the Committee House and all its stores were blown up. These depositions are most interesting reading, and give an extremely vivid idea of the life in the city in those troublons times, and a wealth of detail as to the manners and customs of the people not to be found elsewhere. The Committee very kindly offered to pay me for this work, but I declined with thanks, suggesting that they might give me a perpetual free presentation to the Hospital, as I feared I might want it some day. But for the inter– position of one of the Committee, who had a sense of humour, I believe I should have got this. It would have been the greatest scalp I had ever raised in a long series of practical jokes! On the r 1th April I attended a lecture given by a local parson, who succeeded in beating the two hours and seven minutes record mentioned before by no les · than 13 minutes, taking 2 hours 20 minutes for his performa11ce.