EYE  , a

market-town and municipal borough in the Eye parliamentary division of Suffolk; England; 941 M . N.E. from London by the Great Eastern railway, the terminus of a branch from the Ipswich-Norwich line . Pop . (1901) 2004 . The church of St Peter and St Paul is mainly of Perpendicular flint work, with Early English portions and a fine Perpendicular rood screen . It was formerly attached to a Benedictine priory . Slight fragments of a Norman castle crown a mound of probably earlier construction . There are a town hall, corn exchange, and grammar school founded in 1566 . Brewing is the chief industry . The town is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors . Area, 4410 acres . Eye (Heya, Aye) was once surrounded by a stream, from which it is said to have derived its name .

Leland says it was situated in a marsh and had formerly been accessible by river vessels from Cromer, though the river was then only navigable91 to Burston, 12 M. from Eye . From the discovery of numerous bones and Roman urns and coins it has been thought that the place was once the cemetery of a Roman camp . William I. gave the lordship of Eye to Robert Malet, a Norman, who built a castle and a Benedictine monastery which was at first subordinate to the abbey of Bernay in Normandy . Eye is a borough by prescription . In 1205 King John granted to the townsmen a charter freeing them from various tolls and customs and from the jurisdiction of the shire and hundred courts . Later charters were granted by Elizabeth in 1558 and 1574, by James I. in 1604, and by William III. in t697 . In 1574 the borough was newly incorporated under two bailiffs, ten chief and twenty-four inferior burgesses, and an annual fair on Whit-Monday and a market on Saturday were granted . Two members were returned to each parliament from 1571 till 1832, when the Reform Act reduced the membership to one . By the Redistribution Act of 1885 the representation was merged in the Eye division of the county . The making of pillow-lace was formerly carried on extensively, but practically ceased with the introduction of machinery .