Ryston Station, between Ryston Park and Fordham, marks the neighbourhood of a very interesting spot, for Ryston, though a place of the smallest size and really but a woodland hamlet, is of some historic note, with "Kett's Oak," or the Oak of Reformation, standing in the Park, as a visible point of contact with stirring deeds and ancient times. It is a gigantic tree with hollow trunk and limbs carefully chained and bound together, and marks one of the encampments of the Norfolk peasantry in Kett's Rebellion of 1549. This was a popular outbreak caused by the lawless action of the Norfolk gentry of that time in enclosing wastes and common lands. "The peasant whose pigs and cow and poultry had been sold, or had died because the commons where they had once fed were gone; the yeoman dispossessed of his farm; the farm-servant out of employ because where once ten ploughs had turned the soil, one shepherd watched the grazing of the flocks; the artisan smarting under the famine prices the change of culture had brought—all these were united in suffering, while the gentlemen were doubling, trebling, quadrupling their incomes, and adorning their persons and their houses with splendour hitherto unknown."

The outbreak began at Attleborough in June 1549, and a fortnight later there was fighting at Wymondham, where the country-folk, led by Robert Kett, a tanner, of that place, destroyed many illegal fences. Thence, headed by Kett and his brother William, an army of sixteen thousand peasants marched to Mousehold Heath, overlooking Norwich, where their greatest camp was pitched. Under some venerable tree in these camps Robert Kett was wont to sit and administer justice, and Conyers, chaplain to the rebel host, preached beneath their shade while the rising of that memorable summer lasted. Never were the demands of rebellion more reasonable than those put forward on this occasion. They were, that all bondsmen should be made free, "for God made all free with His precious bloodshedding"; that all rivers should be made free and common to all men for fishing and passage; that the clergy should be resident, instead of benefices being held by absentees; and, in the interest of tenants' crops, that no one under a certain degree should keep rabbits unless they were paled in, and that no new dove-houses should be allowed. That last stipulation sounds mysterious, but it referred to a very cruel grievance of olden times, when only the Lord of the Manor might keep pigeons and doves, and did so at the expense of his tenants. The manorial pigeon-houses often seen adjoining ancient Hall or old-world Grange are, in fact, relics of that time when the feudal landowner's pigeons fattened on the peasants' crops.

The story of how the people's petition was disregarded, and how the city of Norwich was taken and retaken with much bloodshed, does not belong here. The rebellion was suppressed, and Robert and William Kett hanged, but the memory of these things still lingers in the rural districts, and everyone in the neighbourhood of Ryston knows "Ked's Oak," as they name it. There were Pratts of Ryston Hall then, as now, and old legends still tell how Robert Kett seized some of the Squire's sheep to feed his followers, leaving this rhymed note in acknowledgment—

Some of the insurgents were hanged from this very tree, as the rhyme tells us—

The present Squire has recorded these things on a stone placed against the trunk of this venerable relic.

Denver, which presently succeeds Fordham and Ryston, is remarkable for many things. Firstly, for that beautiful old Tudor mansion, Denver Hall, by the wayside, on entering the village; secondly, for the semicircular sweep of the high road around the church; and, thirdly, for the great "Denver Sluice" on the river Ouse, a mile away. This is the massive lock that at high tide shuts out the tidal waters from flooding the reclaimed Fens, and at the ebb is opened to let out the accumulated waters of the Ouse and the innumerable drains of the Great Level. The failure of Denver Sluice would spell disaster and ruin to many, and it has for that reason been specially protected by troops on several occasions when Irish political agitators have entered upon "physical force" campaigns, and have been credited with a desire to blow up this main protection of two thousand square miles of land slowly and painfully won back from bog and waste.

Denver gives its name to a town in America—Denver, Colorado—and has had several distinguished natives; but, despite all these many and varied attributes of greatness, it is a very small and very modest place, quite overshadowed by the little town of Downham Market, a mile onward. Downham, as Camden informs us, obtains its name from "Dun" and "ham," signifying the home on the hill; and the ancient parish church, which may be taken as standing on the site of the original settlement, does indeed rise from a knoll that, although of no intrinsic height, commands a vast and impressive view over illimitable miles of marshland. It is not a church of great interest, nor does the little town offer many attractions, although by no means unpleasing.

They still point out the house where Nelson once went to school; and two old inns remain, very much as they were in coaching days. In the Crown yard you may still look up at the windows of the room where the magistrates were sitting on that day in 1816 when the rioters made them fly.

Villages on these last twelve miles between Downham and Lynn are plentiful. No sooner is the little town left behind than the church of Wimbotsham comes in sight, with that of Stow Bardolph plainly visible ahead. Both are interesting old buildings, with something of almost every period of architecture to show the curious. Beyond its church, and a farmstead or two, Wimbotsham has nothing along the road, but Stow Bardolph is a village complete in every story-book particular. Here is the church, and here, beneath a spreading chestnut (or other) tree the village smithy stands; while opposite are the gates of the Park and the shady avenue leading up to the Hall where, not Bardolphs nowadays, but Hares, reside in dignified ease; as may be guessed from the village inn, the Hare Arms, with its armorial sign and motto, Non videre, sed esse—"not to seem, but to be," the proud boast or noble aspiration of the family. Almshouses, cottages with pretty gardens, and a very wealth of noble trees complete the picture of "Stow," as the country-folk solely know it, turning a bewildered and stupid gaze upon the stranger who uses the longer title.

The pilgrim through many miles of fen revels in this wooded mile from Stow Bardolph village to Hogge's Bridge, where the road makes a sharp bend to the left amid densely overarching trees, commanding a distant view of Stow Bardolph Hall at the farther end of a long green drive. South Runcton Church, standing lonely by the road beyond this pretty scene, is an example of how not to restore a pure Norman building. It still keeps a very beautiful Norman chancel arch, but the exterior, plastered to resemble stone, is distressing.

At Setchey, originally situated on a navigable creek of the river Nar and then named Sedge-hithe, or Seech-hithe—meaning a sedge and weed-choked harbour—we are come well within the old Dutch circle of influence over local building design. There are still some characteristic old Dutch houses at Downham; and Lynn, of course, being of old a port in closest touch with Holland, is full of queer gables and quaint architectural details brought over from the Low Countries. Here at Setchey, too, stands a very Dutch-like old inn—the Lynn Arms.

Commons—"Whin Commons" in the local phrase—and the scattered houses of West Winch, lead on to Hardwick Bridge, where, crossing over the railway, the broad road bends to the right. There, facing you, is an ancient Gothic battlemented gatehouse, and beyond it the long broad street of a populous town: the town of King's Lynn.