NORFOLK, an eastern county of England, bounded north and east by the North sea, south-east and south by Suffolk and west by Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. The area is 2,044.4 sq.m., the county being the fourth in size in England.
The county as a whole is low-lying, no point reaching up over 35o feet. In the extreme west we have the flat fens composed of recent alluvium, which is crossed by various dykes and ditches which help to drain the district ; windmills used for this purpose are a conspicuous feature, though they are being replaced by pumping engines. To the east of the Ouse the land rises somewhat, where we have the north easterly extension of the chalk hills of England. These form the oldest rocks in the county, except for a few small patches of Kimeridge clay lying along their western side. The cretaceous rocks dip east ward under various glacial deposits such as boulder clay and gravel. The indeterminate nature of the drainage is due to glacial action. The heights also die away southward and eastward, and here the land is generally fertile and well wooded, with occasional expanses of heath. The rivers follow rather irregular courses, what watershed there is lying across the centre of the county from south-east to north-west ; the Cromer Morainic ridge forms a secondary parting at right-angles to the first. The largest rivers in the east of the county are the Yare and its tributaries the Bure and the Waveney, which forms a large part of the boundary with Suffolk. In the river valleys are large stretches of alluvial deposits.
Nearly two-thirds of the boundary of the county is formed by tidal water, but there are few bays or inlets. For the most part the coast-line is flat and low, and has been greatly encroached on by the sea, several villages having been engulfed since the Con quest. At certain points, however, blown sand is filling up some arms of the sea. From the mouth of the Yare to Happisburgh the shore is skirted by sandbanks. Thence for 20 M. it is formed of cliffs consisting of clay and masses of embedded rocks. These cliffs are succeeded by a low shingly or sandy coast stretching as far as St. Edmund's point. The shores of the Wash are formed
of mudbanks, which are left dry at low water. At various points off the coast there are submarine forests, especially in Brancaster bay and in the neighbourhood of Cromer and Happisburgh.
Palaeolithic implements have been found in the county in the valley of the Little Ouse and near Cromer. The county, because of the low rainfall and fairly strong winds, was never very heavily forested, and as such it offered a suitable home for Neolithic man, who has left extensive traces of his occupation on the chalk of the west and along the gravels in the east. A few miles north-east of Brandon there are extensive pits in the chalk dug by early man when quarrying for flint (Grimes' Graves), and in them were found numerous deer antlers used by him as picks. Bronze weapons are fairly numerous, and their distribution tallies generally with those of Neolithic artefacts. Evidence of probable contacts across the North sea is borne out by the fact that II beakers have been discovered in the county. Finds of the early Iron age are not numerous, but towards the end of the pre-Christian era and for some time after, Norfolk was part of the lands of the Iceni. This tribe accepted the suzerainty of the Romans at the Conquest, but at the death of their ruler, Prasutagus, and following the injustice of the Romans to his wife, Boudicca (Boadicea), and his daughters, they rebelled. Successful at first, they were finally completely defeated, and their territories ravaged by the victors. Of Roman remains in the county we have the settlement of Caister-by-Norwich, per haps a small village at Caister-by-Yarmouth and a fort at Bran caster which guarded the Wash and the north coast, and which was the headquarters of the Count of the Saxon shore. A Roman road, known as the Peddar way, probably following a more ancient track, crosses the Little Ouse a few miles east of Thetford, and runs north-north-west across the country to near Hunstanton ; another road from Colchester to Caister-by-Norwich enters the county by Scole. The eastward continuation of the pre-Roman Icknield way also crossed the county.