A long run of fifteen miles brought the company EAST BARSHAM to Fakenham where lunch was served at the MANOR HOUSE.

Crown Hotel.

The route resumed, East Barsham Manor House, was soon reached where Mr. W. R. Rudd, Hon. Excursion Secretary, read a paper written by Mr. Rye, who was unable to be present through illness.

William Fermour, son of Sir Henry Fermour, has generally had the credit of building this house, but from the fact that the arms of Henry VII. were on the porch door and that Henry VIII. visited here on his way to Walsingham, Mr. Rye thought the building must have been earlier. The Architect may have been he who built Hampton Court for Wolsey, with which there are many points of resemblance, and the date may be placed about 1508. In that case Sir John Wood, speaker of the House of Commons, whose widow married Sir Henry Fermour, probably began the house when he owned the estate.

William Fermor was Vicar here in 1394 and Blomefield thinks that Sir Henry was the son of Thomas Fermour of Tattersett, who was adviser of the Prior of Hempton and received an annuity from him in 1501. Sir Henry's name does not occur in the List of County Gentry in 1500, nor in the Lists of the Commissioners for the Subsidies of 1513, and 1514. Yet in the Subsidy of 1523 he was returned as the richest man in the County. It may be that he was a London merchant. His youngest son, Richard, certainly was; he was also a Merchant of the Staple at Calais.

Sir William Fermour, the Senior Commissioner for the plunder of church goods, married Catherine, daughter of Sir Thomas Knyvett, and when the dissolution of the monasteries took place in 1539 he received large grants, notably of the possessions of Hempton Priory which had benefited by his grandfather's advice. He was knighted in 1541, and was High Sheriff of Norfolk in that year.

The paper concluded with a summary of the misfortunes that fell on him and his family, derived from Spelman's History of Sacrilege. A stop was next made at the Pilgrims' Chapel at THE PILGRIMS' Houghton-in-the-Dale. Here Mr. Leonard G. CHAPEL AT Bolingbroke, Hon. Treasurer, read a paper, in the HOUGHTON. course of which he said :

It was difficult for us to realize the immense popularity of pilgrimages, but the pilgrims were of every nation and every degree from kings to beggars. Their oblations at Walsingham were estimated at £200 12s. 44d. in 1534. Naturally accommodation for pilgrims was provided on the various roads and some eight houses and chapels in Norfolk are thought to have existed for this purpose.

Little of the history of the Chapel at Houghton is known. It was dedicated to St. Catherine and it was, no doubt, the last chapel at which the pilgrims paid their devotions before reaching Walsingham. It appears to have been erected as a "shriving place" and it was here

THE CHAPEL AT HOUGHTON AS IT APPEARED IN 1891.

From a photograph by Mr. G. H. Tyndall.