Tract of ground wholly employed in
dairies, and they again famous for the best butter, and perhaps the
worst cheese, in England. The butter is barrelled, or often
pickled up in small casks, and sold, not in London only, but I have
known a firkin of Suffolk butter sent to the West Indies, and
brought back to England again, and has been perfectly good and
sweet, as at first.
The port for the shipping off their Suffolk butter is chiefly
Woodbridge, which for that reason is full of corn factors and
butter factors, some of whom are very considerable merchants.
From hence, turning down to the shore, we see Orfordness, a noted
point of land for the guide of the colliers and coasters, and a
good shelter for them to ride under when a strong north-east wind
blows and makes a foul shore on the coast.
South of the Ness is Orford Haven, being the mouth of two little
rivers meeting together. It is a very good harbour for small
vessels, but not capable of receiving a ship of burden.
Orford was once a good town, but is decayed, and as it stands on
the land side of the river the sea daily throws up more land to it,
and falls off itself from it, as if it was resolved to disown the
place, and that it should be a seaport no longer.
A little farther lies Aldborough, as thriving, though without a
port, as the other is decaying, with a good river in the front of
it.
There are some gentlemen's seats up farther from the sea, but very
few upon the coast.
From Aldborough to Dunwich there are no towns of note; even this
town seems to be in danger of being swallowed up, for fame reports
that once they had fifty churches in the town; I saw but one left,
and that not half full of people.
This town is a testimony of the decay of public things, things of
the most durable nature; and as the old poet expresses it,
"By numerous examples we may see,
That towns and cities die as well as we."
The ruins of Carthage, of the great city of Jerusalem, or of
ancient Rome, are not at all wonderful to me. The ruins of
Nineveh, which are so entirety sunk as that it is doubtful where
the city stood; the ruins of Babylon, or the great Persepolis, and
many capital cities, which time and the change of monarchies have
overthrown, these, I say, are not at all wonderful, because being
the capitals of great and flourishing kingdoms, where those
kingdoms were overthrown, the capital cities necessarily fell with
them; but for a private town, a seaport, and a town of commerce, to
decay, as it were, of itself (for we never read of Dunwich being
plundered or ruined by any disaster, at least, not of late years);
this, I must confess, seems owing to nothing but to the fate of
things, by which we see that towns, kings, countries, families, and
persons, have all their elevation, their medium, their declination,
and even their destruction in the womb of time, and the course of
nature. It is true, this town is manifestly decayed by the
invasion of the waters, and as other towns seem sufferers by the
sea, or the tide withdrawing from their ports, such as Orford, just
now named, Winchelsea in Kent, and the like, so this town is, as it
were, eaten up by the sea, as above; and the still encroaching
ocean seems to threaten it with a fatal immersion in a few years
more.
Yet Dunwich, however ruined, retains some share of trade, as
particularly for the shipping of butter, cheese, and corn, which is
so great a business in this county, that it employs a great many
people and ships also; and this port lies right against the
particular part of the county for butter, as Framlingham, Halstead,
etc. Also a very great quantity of corn is bought up hereabout for
the London market; for I shall still touch that point how all the
counties in England contribute something towards the subsistence of
the great city of London, of which the butter here is a very
considerable article; as also coarse cheese, which I mentioned
before, used chiefly for the king's ships.
Hereabouts they begin to talk of herrings and the fishery; and we
find in the ancient records that this town, which was then equal to
a large city, paid, among other tribute to the government, fifty
thousand of herrings. Here also, and at Swole, or Southole, the
next seaport, they cure sprats in the same manner as they do
herrings at Yarmouth; that is to say, speaking in their own
language, they make red sprats; or to speak good English, they make
sprats red.
It is remarkable that this town is now so much washed away by the
sea, that what little trade they have is carried on by Walderswick,
a little town near Swole, the vessels coming in there, because the
ruins of Dunwich make the shore there unsafe and uneasy to the
boats; from whence the northern coasting seamen a rude verse of
their own using, and I suppose of their own making, as follows,
"Swoul and Dunwich, and Walderswick,
All go in at one lousie creek."
This "lousie creek," in short, is a little river at Swoul, which
our late famous atlas-maker calls a good harbour for ships, and
rendezvous of the royal navy; but that by-the-bye; the author, it
seems, knew no better.
From Dunwich we came to Southwold, the town above-named: this is a
small port town upon the coast, at the mouth of a little river
called the Blith.
