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White's History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Norfolk 1845

SOUTH ERPINGHAM HUNDRED

[Transcription copyright © Richard Johns]

Is a highly cultivated district, finely interspersed with woods, streams, villages, churches, and many handsome seats. It is of a crooked spiral figure, about 16 miles in length, exclusive of a narrow strip at its northern extremity, terminating at West Beckham; and varying from 9 to less than 5 miles in breadth, extending to within 3 miles of the ocean. It is bounded on the south by Taverham, on the west by Eynesford and Holt, on the north by North Erpingham, and on the east by Tunstead Hundred. The river Bure flows through it, from Corpusty to Belaugh, receiving in its course many tributary streams, watering a fertile valley, which in some places is broken into bold and picturesque acclivities. In 1773, an act was obtained to make the Bure navigable from Coltishall up to Aylsham, a market town, nearly in the centre of this Hundred, which forms, in ecclesiastical matters, the Deanery of Ingworth, in the Archdeaconry of Norwich.

PETTY SESSIONS, for the whole Hundred, are held at the Black Boy, Aylsham, every Tuesday; and Mr. Fredk. Roe is clerk to the magistrates. The fee of it remained in the Crown till 1226, when Henry III. granted it to Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, at which time the Hundred Court was held at Cawston Park Gate.

It contains 38 parishes, of which the following is an enumeration, shewing their population in 1841, the annual value of their lands and buildings, as assessed to the County Rate in 1843, and their territorial extent, in assessable acres.

PARISHES. Pop. Annl.
Value
£.
Acres.
Alby 299 1448 715
Aylsham 2448 10,478 4102
Baconsthorpe 326 1638 1348
Banningham @ 329 1680 908
Barningham(Ltl.) 229 1196 1225
Beckham (West) 179 1034 723
Belaugh 164 1072 826
Blickling @ 356 2444 2081
Booton 241 1730 1011
Brampton * 263 990 482
Burgh St. Mary * 314 1562 789
Buxton * 713 2824 1204
Calthorpe 214 1656 1028
Cawston 1130 4248 3805
Colby @ 346 1870 1075
Coltishall 897 3412 1129
Corpusty 449 1340 927
Erpingham @ 475 2608 1348
Hautboys (Great) 162 936 589
Hevingham * 893 3400 2793
Heydon 321 1660 1717
Ingworth 152 956 496
Irmingland 13 840 704
Itteringham @ 351 1814 1442
Lammas-with- }
Ltl. Hautboys }
257}
42}
1634 811
Mannington 20 590 548
Marsham * 698 2214 1384
Oulton @ 409 1898 1675
Oxnead * 56 1244 641
Saxthorpe 342 1952 2073
Scottow 539 3504 2068
Skeyton * 351 2018 1227
Stratton-Straw-}
less * }
277 1636 1217
Swanton-Abbot * 501 1700 946
Thwaite 170 1044 482
Tuttington 227 1620 822
Wickmere 307 1612 975
Wolterton 43 1142 722



Total 15,500 76,644 48,058

[There is more information about individual parishes]

All the above parishes are in Aylsham Union, except Baconsthorpe and West Beckham, which are in Erpingham Union, and Booton, which is in St. Faith's Union. All are in Aylsham Police Division, except Belaugh, which is in Dereham Division. The population of the Hundred, in 1831, was 14,898. Its annual value, as assessed to the PROPERTY TAX, was £56,205, in 1815, and £85,527, in 1842.

* @ AYLSHAM UNION comprises 35 parishes in South Erpingham, and 11 parishes in Eynesford Hundred. (See page 344. [this is in Eynesford Hundred description]) These 46 parishes comprise an area of 106 square miles; and in 1841, had 20,056 inhabitants, of whom 9869 were males and 10,187 females. Their average annual expenditure, during the three years preceding the formation of the Union, was £20,391; but in 1838, it was only £9652. For the quarter ending Dec. 1844, it was £2569.

The Union Workhouses are at Buxton and Oulton, both of which are old Houses of Industry; that at Buxton, 4 miles S.S.E. of Aylsham, being built before the year 1800, for nine incorporated parishes, (marked * in the foregoing table;) and that at Oulton, 3½ miles N.W. of Aylsham, being altered in 1804, as a Workhouse for the six parishes marked @ in the foregoing table.

After the formation of the Union, in 1836, these houses were altered and enlarged, at the cost of about £1200. That at Buxton has room for about 400 paupers, and that at Oulton for about 100. Only the aged and infirm are sent to the latter, where the average weekly cost of each inmate, for food and clothing, is 2s 11.; but at Buxton it is 2s. 0½d. The Union has two chaplains and eight surgeons; and Mr. Wm. Hill, of Marsham, is Union Clerk and Supt. Registrar.

The Masters of the Workhouses are, Mr. Thomas Potter, at Buxton, and Mr. E. F. Barnaby, at Oulton. Mr. J. Wright and Mr. A. Sands are the district registrars and relieving officers. In the months of Oct. Nov. and Dec. 1844, no fewer than 18 persons died in this Union, each of them above 80, and three of them above 90 years of age.


Notes

Some placenames in the transcription (of pages 450 to 451) above are given below together with their standard spelling :-
Barningham(Ltl.)/Little Barningham, Beckham (West)/West Beckham, Burgh St. Mary/Burgh next Aylsham, Hautboys (Great)/Great Hautboys (Great Hautbois), Ltl. Hautboys/Little Hautboys (Little Hautbois), Stratton-Straw-less/Stratton Strawless, Swanton Abbot/Swanton Abbott, Thwaite/Thwaite All Saints


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Copyright © Mike Bristow.
April 2006