The mounds of earth raised for the defence of the castle still retain much of their original character, though considerably reduced in height. One of them, facing the south, was partly removed in 1840, with the intention of forming a cattle market. As a boy I often heard of the proud boast of Hugh Bigod, second Earl, one of King Stephen’s most formidable opponents, as recorded by Camden:
‘Were I in my castle of Bungay,
Upon the river Waveney,
I would not care for the King of Cockeney.’
In ancient times the Waveney was a much broader stream than it is now, and Bungay was called Le Bon Eye, or the good island, then being nearly surrounded by water. Hence the name, in the vulgar dialect, of Bungay. To ‘go to Bungay to get a new bottom’ was a common saying in Suffolk.
In 1777 we find Hannah More writing to Garrick from Bungay, which she describes as ‘a much better town than I expected, very clean and pleasant.’ ‘You are the favourite bard of Bungay’—at that time the tragedians of the city of Norwich were staying there—‘and,’ writes Hannah, who at that time had not become serious and renounced the gaieties of the great world, ‘the
dramatic furore rages terribly among the people, the more so, I presume, from being allowed to vent itself so seldom. Everybody goes to the play every night,—that is, every other night, which is as often as they perform. Visiting, drinking, and even card-playing, is for this happy month suspended; nay, I question if, like Lent, it does not stop the celebration of weddings, for I do not believe there is a damsel in the town who would spare the time to be married during this rarely-occurring scene of festivity. It must be confessed, however, the good folks have no bad taste.’ It must be recollected that Hannah More in reality belongs to East Anglia. She was the daughter of Jacob More, who was descended from a respectable family at Harleston. He was a High Churchman, but all his family were Nonconformists. His mother used to tell young people that they would have known how to value Gospel privileges had they lived like her, when at midnight pious worshippers went with stealthy steps through the snow to hear the words of inspiration delivered by a holy man at her father’s house; while her father, with a drawn sword, guarded the entrance from violent or profane intrusion, adding that they boarded the minister and kept his horse for £10 a year. An unfortunate
lawsuit deprived the Mores of their property, and thus it was that the celebrated Hannah was born at Gloucestershire, and not in Suffolk or Norfolk. The family mansion was at Wenhaston, not very far from Wrentham.
In my young days Bungay owed all its fame and most of its wealth to the far-famed John Childs, who was one of our first Church Rate martyrs, to whom is due mainly the destruction of the Bible-printing monopoly, and to whom the late Edward Miall was much indebted for establishing the Nonconformist newspaper. For many years it was the habit of Mr. Childs to celebrate that event by a dinner, at which the wine was good and the talk was better. Old John Childs, of Bungay, had a cellar of port which a dean might have envied; and many was the bottle that I cracked with him as a young man, after a walk from Wrentham to Bungay, a distance of fourteen miles, to talk with him on things in general, and politics in particular. He was emphatically a self-made man—a man who would have made his way anywhere, and a man who had a large acquaintance with the reformers of his day in all parts of the country. On one occasion the great Dan O’Connell came to pay him a visit, much to the delight of the Suffolk Radicals,
and to the horror of the Tories. The first great dinner at which I had the honour of being present, and to which I was taken by my father, who was a great friend of Mr. Childs, was on the occasion of the presentation to the latter of a testimonial by a deputation of distinguished Dissenters from Ipswich in connection with his incarceration in the county gaol at Ipswich, for having refused to pay rates for the support of a Church in which he did not believe, and for the performance of a service in which he took no part. At that time ‘the dear old Church of England,’ while it was compelled to tolerate Dissent, insisted on Dissent being taxed to the uttermost farthing; and that it does not do so now, and that it is more popular in consequence, is due to the firm stand taken by such men as John Childs of Bungay. He was a great phrenologist. In his garden he had a summer-house, which he facetiously termed his scullery, where he had some three hundred plaster casts, many of which he had taken himself of public individuals and friends and acquaintances. My father was honoured in this way, as also my eldest sister. Sir Henry Thompson and I escaped that honour, but I have not forgotten his dark, piercing glance at our heads, when, as boys, we first came into his presence, and how I
trusted that the verdict was satisfactory. Of course the Childses went to Meeting, but when I knew Bungay Mr. Shufflebottom had been gathered to his fathers, and the Rev. John Blaikie, a Scotchman, and therefore always a welcome guest at Wrentham, reigned in his stead. Mr. Childs had a large and promising family, few of whom now remain. His daughter was an exceptionally gifted and glorious creature, as in that early day it seemed to me. She also died early, leaving but one son, Mr. Crisp, a partner in the well-known legal firm of Messrs. Ashurst, Morris, and Crisp. It was in the little box by the window of the London Coffee House—now, alas! no more—where Mr. Childs, on the occasion of his frequent visits to London, always gathered around him his friends, that I first made the acquaintance of Mr. Ashurst, the head of the firm—a self-made man, like Mr. Childs, of wonderful acuteness and great public spirit. In religion Mr. Ashurst was far more advanced than the Bungay printer. ‘It is not a thing to reason about,’ said the latter; and so to the last he remained orthodox, attended the Bungay Meeting-house, invited the divines of that order to his house, put in appearance at ordination services, and openings of chapels, and was to be seen at May
Meetings when in town, where occasionally his criticisms were of a freer order than is usually met with at such places.