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Norfolk Hundreds

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

TUNSTEAD HUNDRED

Is of a crooked oblong figure, extending about 13 miles southward from the sea coast, between Happisburgh and Mundesley, to the river Bure, and averaging from five to six miles in breadth. It is generally a well cultivated district of rich loamy land, highly productive in wheat and barley, and broken into a pleasing variety of hills, vales, and plains, interspersed with tracts of fertile marshes, and watered by several "broads" and rivulets, most of which are tributary to the small river Ant.

This river intersects and bounds this Hundred during its whole course from Antingham to the Bure, and was formerly navigable only as high as Dilham; but by deepening the channel, and cutting a canal, upwards of seven miles in length, in 1825-6, at the cost of £32,000, the navigation has been extended to North Walsham, and the bounds of Antingham; thus affording an easy transit for the produce of this and adjoining Hundreds, to Yarmouth.

TUNSTEAD AND HAPPING HUNDREDS form the Deanery of Waxham or Waxton, in the Archdeanery of Norwich, and their 24 parishes, except North Walsham, (which is in Erpingham Union,) where[sic] INCORPORATED for the support of their poor, in the 25th of Geo. III., when they erected a HOUSE OF INDUSTRY, at Smallburgh, which was altered and a little enlarged in 1836, and has room for about 500 paupers. Attached to this large Workhouse is 24A. of arable land. The expenditure of the 41 incorporated parishes, on their in and out-door poor, was £4367, in 1839; £4381, in 1842; and £1433, for the quarter ending September, 1844. They comprise an area of about 57,700 acres, and a population of 15,436 souls, of whom 7588 were males, and 7848 females.

John Postle, Esq., is chairman, and Mr. Jno. Barnard, of Worstead, is clerk to the Board of Guardians and Directors. Mr Washington Smith is master of the Wockhouse[sic] and Superintendent Registrar, for the incorporated parishes. The Rev. Thos. Dix is chaplain; and Messrs. James Bean and Robt. Rising, are relieving officers and registrars of births and deaths; the former for Tunstead District, and the latter for Happing District.

Tunstead Hundred is bounded on the north by the ocean and North Erpingham, on the east by Happing, on the south by Walsham, and on the west by South Erpingham and Taverham Hundreds. It contains 26 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.
Ashmanhaugh 180 1006 644
Bacton 513 2680 1585
Barton-Turf 408 2448 1509
Beeston St. Lawrc. 48 882 518
Bradfield 195 1054 719
Crostwight 69 346 688
Dilham 488 2866 1540
Edingthorpe 195 1264 700
Felmingham 408 3112 1863
Honing 344 2206 1024
Horning 467 3790 2524
Hoveton St. John 317 1746 1766
Hoveton St. Peter 137 1302 815
Irstead 170 1136 838
Neatishead 697 3052 1878
Paston 298 2524 1318
Ridlington 212 1186 597
Sco-Ruston 115 822 482
Sloley 291 1452 637
Smallburgh * 634 2568 1171
Swafield 167 1434 817
Tunstead 488 4144 2261
Walsham (North *) 2655 10,942 3808
Westwick 192 1378 834
Witton 280 2526 1720
Worstead 834 4504 2404



Total + 10,802 62,82 34,696

[There is more information about individual parishes]

* Smallburgh included 135 persons in the Workhouse of the incorporated parishes of Tunstead and Happing, which comprise all the above, except North Walsham, which is in Erpingham Union.

+ Tunstead is in Aylsham and Ludham Police Divisions. Its population, in 1831, was 10,593; and its annual value, as assessed to the property tax, was £39,139, in 1815, and £50,595 in 1842.

PETTY SESSIONS, for Tunstead and Happing Hundreds, are held every Thursday, at North Walsham, and every Tuesday at the Workhouse, in Smallburgh. Mr. Philip Millard, of the former place, is clerk to the magistrates. The TUNSTEAD AND HAPPING AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION holds its meetings at North Walsham, where there is also a Farmers' Club.


Notes

Some placenames in the transcription (of pages 474 to 475) above are given below together with their standard spelling :-
Beeston St. Lawrc./Beeston St. Lawrence, Walsham (North)/North Walsham, Witton/Witton (near North Walsham)

From ADDITIONS AND ALTERATIONS on page 816, ERRATA section:

Page 474, sixth line from bottom, read 42, not 24 parishes.

This is Paragraph 3, first sentence in this page.


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Copyright © Mike Bristow.
April 2006