Crimplesham

Crimplesham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated 2.5 miles (4.0 km) east of the small town of Downham Market, 12 miles (19 km) south of the larger town of King's Lynn, and 37 miles (60 km) west of the city of Norwich.

Crimplesham

St Mary, Crimplesham
Crimplesham
Location within Norfolk
Area6.63 km2 (2.56 sq mi)
Population298 (2011)
• Density45/km2 (120/sq mi)
OS grid referenceTF650037
Civil parish
  • Crimplesham
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townKING'S LYNN
Postcode districtPE33
PoliceNorfolk
FireNorfolk
AmbulanceEast of England

The civil parish has an area of 1,640 acres (660 ha) and in the 2001 census had a population of 221 in 94 households, the population including Stradsett and increasing to 298 at the 2011 Census.[1] For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of King's Lynn and West Norfolk.

History

In Saxon times, around 1040, Ailid a freewoman is recorded as the owner of the manor of Crimplesham.

In 1066 William the Conqueror seized the manor and gave it to Rainald, one of his barons. And so on, through medieval history, possession of Crimplesham passed from baron to baron, its owner often holding manors all over England. At one time it had ties to Bexwell, Downham Market and the Abbey at West Dereham

In 1541 Francis Dereham of Crimplesham was hanged, drawn and quartered, by order of Henry VIII, accused of a pre-marital relationship with Catherine Howard.

In 1806 the Bagge family of Stradsett bought the manor from the daughter of the late Edward Soames, Lord of the manors of Dereham and Crimplesham. In 1880 a Liverpool banker called John Grant Morris purchased some of the land, including the manor house, and built a new Hall as a gift on the marriage of his daughter to the second son of the Bagge family.

In 1854 a Mrs Elizabeth Doyle, living at Crimplesham Hall, invited Benjamin Benson, a former slave, to address the schoolchildren on the horrors of slavery.. Mrs Doyle also helped to clothe the poorer school children. The hall was re-designed by the eminent Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse and completed in 1881.

Across the main road to the east of Crimplesham Hall is the moated site of another manor house. A square moat still exists, but has no trace of a building within. Norfolk Archeological Unit have called it Talbots Manor, and Crimplesham Hall is described as The Prior of Tonbridge or Hall Manor

The village school closed in 1984.

St Mary's Church

St Mary’s Church dates from the 12th - 13th centuries, with later additions. The parish registers record the bequest of a bell to the church in 1651:

"Be it recorded in ye surviving memory of ye living, ye memorable act of Mr. Richd. Ward, Gent., then inhabitant in the towne of Crimplesham, who gave a trebble bell of three hundred and fifty weight to ye sayd towne, in the year of our Lord, 1651. May she be heard beyond the bounds of Ingratitude; thus wisheth Thom. Wardner, Minist."

The church was restored by John Grant Morris in 1897.

References
  1. "Parish population 2011". Retrieved 26 August 2015.
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