Sleep" is gradually disappearing, and "the graves of the fair women
that sleep by the cliffs by the sea" have been outraged, and their
bodies scattered and devoured by the pitiless waves.

One of the greatest prizes of the sea is the ancient city of Dunwich,
which dates back to the Roman era. The Domesday Survey shows that it
was then a considerable town having 236 burgesses. It was girt with
strong walls; it possessed an episcopal palace, the seat of the East
Anglian bishopric; it had (so Stow asserts) fifty-two churches, a
monastery, brazen gates, a town hall, hospitals, and the dignity of
possessing a mint. Stow tells of its departed glories, its royal and
episcopal palaces, the sumptuous mansion of the mayor, its numerous
churches and its windmills, its harbour crowded with shipping, which
sent forth forty vessels for the king's service in the thirteenth
century. Though Dunwich was an important place, Stow's description of
it is rather exaggerated. It could never have had more than ten
churches and monasteries. Its "brazen gates" are mythical, though it
had its Lepers' Gate, South Gate, and others. It was once a thriving
city of wealthy merchants and industrious fishermen. King John granted
to it a charter. It suffered from the attacks of armed men as well as
from the ravages of the sea. Earl Bigot and the revolting barons
besieged it in the reign of Edward I. Its decay was gradual. In 1342,
in the parish of St. Nicholas, out of three hundred houses only
eighteen remained. Only seven out of a hundred houses were standing in
the parish of St. Martin. St. Peter's parish was devastated and
depopulated. It had a small round church, like that at Cambridge,
called the Temple, once the property of the Knights Templars, richly
endowed with costly gifts. This was a place of sanctuary, as were the
other churches in the city. With the destruction of the houses came
also the decay of the port which no ships could enter. Its rival,