CORTON, a parish in the hundred of MUTFORD-and-LOTHINGLAND,
county of SUFFOLK, 3 miles (N.)
from Lowestoft, containing 375 inhabitants. The living
is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Suffolk,
and diocese of Norwich, endowed with £600 royal
bounty, and in the patronage of the Crown. The church,
dedicated to St. Bartholomew, is partly in ruins, the
porch and the lateral walls of the nave being nearly
overspread with ivy, but divine service is still performed
in the chancel; though, from, its beautiful tower, still
perfect, and which, from its elevated position, serves as
a land-mark for mariners, and its extensive ruins, there
is reason to presume that it was a structure of much
magnificence -. the remains of another church, or chapel,
still visible at a place called the Gate, together with
old ruins and foundations discovered in many'parts,
lead to the inference that the village of Gorton was in
former times much larger than it is at present, and
probably the resort of fishermen at the period when
the mouth of Yarmouth harbour extended nearly to
this place. Coins, fossils, &c., have been found within
the base of the cliff, which borders on the North
sea, on its being undermined by the tide; and a stratum
of oak, several feet thick, and extending in length
more than two hundred yards, was exposed to the view,
after a severe storm in 1812. About the same time, a
part of the pelvis, or haunch bone's, of the mammoth,
now in Mr. Sowerby's museum, London, together with
other antediluvian remains, were found half a mile
northward of the place.