Castle Rising, Norfolk

Description
Castle-Rising, a decayed town and parish in Norfolk. The town stands 1 1/2 mile NE of North Wootton station on the G.E.R., and 4 1/2 NE by N of Lynn. It has a post office under Lynn; money order office, Lynn; telegraph office, Hillington. Acreage of the civil parish, 2136; population, 317; of the ecclesiastical, including Roydon, 491. A Roman station and a Saxon fort probably were here, and a great castle was erected on their site some time before 1176 by William de Albini, first Earl of Sussex. Remains of the castle still exist, and show it to have been a place of much importance. The interior is greatly dilapidated, but is least so in the room where the court-leet was held. The walls of the keep are 9 feet thick, the encompassing ditch is deep, and the rampart bold; a strong wall, with three towers, formerly surmounted the rampart, and the entire place was on a similar plan to Norwich castle, and nearly as large. Several kings made visits to it; and Isabel, the queen of Edward II., was confined in it from 1330, after the murder of her husband, till her death in 1358. There are also some remains of an Anglo-Saxon church. The town is now a small village; but was formerly a seat of great markets, a centre of political influence, a borough by prescription, and a seaport; and it sent two members to parliament, till disfranchised by the act of 1832. Tradition assumes that the sea came up to it in the same manner that it now does to Lynn; and an old rhyme says:£ Rising was a seaport town When Lynn was but a marsh; Now Lynn it is a seaport town, And Rising fares the worse ! The living is a rectory, united with the rectory of Roydon, in the diocese of Norwich ; joint net yearly value, £250 with residence. The church is partly Norman, partly Early English, and was restored in 1844, 1857, and 1883. There is an almshouse hospital, founded in the time of James II. by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, which has over £300 a year.