“I often wonder,” said a local tradesman to me the other day as I was contemplating the majestic ruins of Framlingham Castle and the seat of power in the Eastern Counties, “that the Great Eastern Railway does not run excursion trains here.”  I must own that I shared in that feeling.  I am sure thousands would rush from town to see the place if they had a day excursion there.  The railway in question has done a good deal for Framlingham.  When I knew it as a lad it was out of the world altogether.  It laid quite off the turnpike road.  To get to London a Framlingham resident had to make his way to Wickham Market.  Now it has a railway to itself, and that railway takes you to London, and thus makes Framlingham a living part of the British Empire of to-day.  In one respect this has been a great gain for the town, as it led to the establishment, in 1864, of the Albert Memorial College, a handsome pile of buildings adapted for the accommodation of 500 boys.  The object of the institution is to provide for the middle classes, at a moderate cost, a practical training, which shall prepare the pupils for the active duties of agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial life, and qualification for the Civil Service and other competitive examinations.  The religious instruction is in accordance with the doctrines and practice of the Church of England.  But I am glad to find that there is a conscience clause for the sons of Dissenters who are exempted from Church of England teaching p. 49and from Sunday attendance at the parish church or college chapel.  It speaks well for the school that, though at one time it was in a declining state, for the last few years it has been in a very prosperous condition.  It is interesting, as you stand on the lawn in front of the college and look at the decaying ruins of Framlingham Castle, to note how we have swept into a younger day.  Ages have passed away since Hugh Bigod lived there; indeed, the origin of the castle is somewhat obscure.  Its last royal occupant was Queen Mary.  Thence she proceeded in state to take possession of her crown, amidst crowds of misguided men, who had rallied round her standard in the hope that she would respect the work of Reformation begun by her father, and continued by her brother.  When the castle was built, brute force ruled the land.  When the new college was erected, it had come to be understood that knowledge was power.  The college flourishes; the old castle is a ruin.  The world moves, after all.

I find Framlingham itself but little changed.  There was a barber who, in my youth, had a picture of Absalom caught by his hair in the wood, while David cries—

    Oh, Absalom, my son, my son,
    Thou wouldst not have died,
    Hadst thou a periwig on!

—That barber is no more, and I know not what has become of his sign.  As an object lesson in history, undying interest attaches to Framlingham Castle and its adjacent church.  The castle must have been one of the largest in England.  As our Quaker poet, Bernard Barton, wrote—

    Still stand thy battlemented towers,
       Firm as in bygone years;
    As if within yet ruled the powers
       Of England’s haughtiest peers.

When I first knew the castle it was used as a poor-house.  The home of the Bigods and the Howards is p. 50utilised in this way no longer.  The castle hall i............