Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/55

 DOMESDAY SURVEY in Clackclose hundred ' half a league ' of wood belonged to Fincham/ an acre to Stow Bardolph,' i6 acres to South Runcton/ and 4 acres to Barton Bendish.* In Brothercross hundred we hear of a wood called Fangeham Wood ' sixty acres in length ' " at Colekirk, while in Depwade hundred at Hemenhale there was a wood called ' Schieteshaga ' supporting 200 swine/ Bittering, in Launditch hundred, had 7 acres/ and Sparham, in Eynesford hundred, had six.' For the most part, however, we must be content with statistics as to swine, and these would lead us to conclude that apart from some stray woods about Heacham and Snettisham and along the course of the Nar, most of the woodland was precisely where we find a scarcity of sheep, that is to say, from Diss north-westwards to Wayland Wood, where the babes ' were found stiff and stark, And stone dead, by two little cock robins,' ' and thence north-easterly in the hundredsofMidford, Launditch, and Eynesford. Nearer the north coast pigs become decidedly scarcer. The largest herd of swine for which pasture is recorded was one of 1,200 at Thorpe next Norwich, but several towns such as Mileham, Necton, and Buxton had 1,000, and there had been 1,500 at Harold's manor of Cawston. We may regard these numbers as guesswork, but Domesday is sometimes very precise about subdivisions of such pastures as those described. At ' Strincham ' (i.e. Itter- ingham), for instance, we find two sokemen who have ' wood for 18 pigs and 2 thirds of another,'^" which may well take rank with the famous 'semibos.'" The same two sokemen had seven-eighths of a mill, which might seem at first sight to require explanation. Professor Maitland suggests that in such cases the 'mill has been erected at the cost of the vill.'^^ We may conclude that in both these cases the fractional expression is the result of co-ownership, even though we are unable to trace the remaining eighth of the mill. Half- mills are somewhat common in Norfolk, the profits being divided between two owners, and in some cases perhaps between two adjoining townships." There was no lack of mills in Norfolk. For the most part they follow the courses of the rivers, the Great Ouse, with its tributaries, the Nar, Stoke, and Little Ouse in the west, the Bure, Wensum, Yare, and Waveney in the east. Some places, such as Thetford, where there were seven mills, must have had a considerable milling industry. One of the Thetford mills brought in £1 I2S. a year.^* Wymondham had 5! mills, Gooderstone 5, Aylsham and East Dereham 4 each, as had Heacham, Snettisham, and Castle Rising near the west coast, North Barsham, near Walsingham, and Shropham in the south. We hear of a good many river fisheries ; Hockwold had six and Meth- wold seven, but in many places where we should expect to find them we find no record. Of sea fisheries we hear little or nothing since we cannot certainly set down the fisheries at Hunstanton, Heacham, and Castle Rising as such. Even on the Yarmouth herring fishery Domesday is silent, so far as Norfolk ' Dom. Bk. f. 205^. ' Ibid. f. 206. ' Ibid. f. 209. ' Ibid. f. 137. ' Ibid. f. 204. ' Vide Ancestor, xii, 179. '° Dom. Bk. f. 1961^. " Maitland, Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 142. '=' Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 144. " Cf. K C. H. Essex, i, 379. " Dom. Bk. f. 173. 2 25 4
 * Ibid. f. 230^. ' Ibid. f. 197. « Ibid. f. 248.