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Corton (St. Bartholomew)

CORTON (St. Bartholomew), a parish, in the incorporation and hundred of Mutford and Lothingland, E. division of Suffolk, 2 miles (N.) from Lowestoft; containing 442 inhabitants. This parish, which comprises 1149a. 1r. 39p., is situated on the coast of the North Sea, and has doubtless participated in the devastation occasioned by the encroachment of the waves upon the land, by which the adjoining parish of Newton has been almost destroyed. From the remains of a church still visible at a place called the Gate, and the ruins and old foundations of houses in other parts, the village of Corton is presumed to have been much more extensive than at present, and probably the resort of fishermen, when the mouth of Yarmouth harbour reached nearly to this place. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the patronage of the Crown; impropriators, the heirs of Thomas Fowler, Esq.: the great tithes have been commuted for £242, and the vicarial for £120. The church is partly in ruins, the porch and the walls of the nave being nearly overspread with ivy; but divine service is still performed in the chancel: from its beautiful tower, which is yet perfect, and serves as a landmark for mariners, and from its extensive ruins, there is reason to presume that it was a structure of much magnificence. Coins, fossils, &c., have been found within the base of the cliff, which borders on the sea, on its being undermined by the tide; and a stratum of oak, several feet thick, and extending in length more than 200 yards, was exposed to the view, after a severe storm, in 1812. About the same time, a part of the pelvis, or haunch bones, of the mammoth, together with other antediluvian remains, was found half a mile northward of the place.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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