An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

202 AUTOBIOGRAPHY amount of fire. Wednesday, the 23rd, said to be the coldei:;t day in Norfolk for two years, but somehow I am beginning to disbelieve in the hottest and coldest days I have heard so much about. On the 24th M.M.R. came down, and I met her at Thorpe, and she too left the next Monday. On the 29th January my eldest sou, J.B.R., married Kathleen Holden, daughter of Charles Holden, of Birming– ham, whom he had met at Oxford. They were married at St. Martin's Registry Office, London, and spent their marriage night at the "Great White Horse," Ipswich, coming down to see me next day, Friday the 30th, but 1eaving on Saturday morning. On the 5th of February Bessie came back. On the 13th of February I heard of Dr. J essopp's death, and on Saturday the 14th, attended his funeral at Seaming, very few people there attending it (except Earl Orford) though he was the best known Norfolk antiquary of his day. A wet, cold, wretched, and sad day to me, for we had been great friends for years. He opened up an entirely new and most interesting line in local history, and interested very many who had hitherto looked on antiquities as :fitting only for dry-as-dusts. His cllief fault was he tried too many subjects and did not prepare them carefully enough, and his hasty writing led him occasionally into terrible errors, e.g , where he spoke in his '' Diocesan History (p. 34) of "St. Benet's Abbey," fonnded by Canute in 1017 as "the "' new abbey like almost all that had preceded it was set " down in the heart of the Norfolk Broads.'' It is hardly necessary to point out that St. Benet had no predecessor in East Norfolk. To his hasty but mistaken refusal to believe that Nelson was educated at North Walsham Grammar School I have already alluded to on p. 145. The extreme delay in finishing Coltishall Bridge prompted these lines, printed in the '' Eastern Daily Press" as a local version of Mother Shipton's prophesy:- " Coltishall Bridge sllall be broken down, Through heavy flood and rain ; But a coU shall grow into a grey old horse, Before it is opened again." Can Mr. Heslop tell us if the latter part of the prc,phecy is likely to turn out as true as the former ? The bridge was soon .afterwards opened, but I can hardly hope that my letter was the cause of the opening.