 By the 1600s, the town of Hingham was still agricultural.John Speed's maps of the Kingdom of England during the Tudor period in 1610 and 1611 showed that the town was near Wymondham (also called Wimundham or Windham).This town was, at the time, situated in the countryside with diverse terrain, profuse windmills, well-watered soil, a large degree of inland water traffic, and few urban centres apart from Norwich, where a thriving cloth industry boomed.