Great Snoring
| Great Snoring | |
| Norfolk | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Great Snoring houses and war memorial | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TF946345 |
| Location: | 52°52’25"N, 0°53’29"E |
| Data | |
| Population: | 168 |
| Post town: | Fakenham |
| Postcode: | NR21 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | North Norfolk |
Great Snoring is a little inland village of northern Norfolk, standing 2 miles east of Fakenham, by the River Stiffkey. It is two miles north of Little Snoring which, despite its name, is the larger village.
At the centre of the village are two listed buildings; St Mary's Church and the Old Rectory. The village main street is lined with houses of brick and flint. The nearest inn and shop is in Little Snoring.[1]
The village population in the 2001 was 168.
Parish church and rectory
The parish church of Great Snoring is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. Its exterior is of chiefly Perpendicular style although with earlier elements, with interior fixtures and detailing from the 12th to the 18th centuries. The church is Grade I listed.[2]
Adjacent to the churchyard is the two-storey brick and terracotta Old Rectory. Built in the late 15th or early 16th century as a manor house for the Shelton family, it was extended between the 17th and 19th centuries. The house was Grade II* listed in 1951.[3] John Betjeman in his 1974 documentary for the BBC, A Passion for Churches, describes the house: "the rectory house is a Tudor palace, with moulded autumn-colour brick and elaborate chimney stacks"[4]
Great Snoring war memorial lists 22 men who died in the First World War.[5]
History
The 1086 Domesday Book calls the village by the name Snaringa/Snarringes, meaning 'Snear's kin's village' after an otherwise unknown progenitor.[1] The book includes mention of a water mill, which now features on the village sign.
In 1611 Sir Ralph Shelton, lord of the manor, sold Great Snoring to Thomas Richardson, later Lord Chief Justice of England. Sir Ralph is reported to have said "I can sleep without Snoring".[1]
Francis White's 1854 History, Gazetteer and Directory of Norfolk describes the village as having as 99 houses, with a total population of 656, and with John Dugmore, Esq as lord of the manor. The church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is described as having a "fine tower" (formerly a spire), containing curious old brasses of the Skelton family. White notes the rectory house, built by the Skelton family, as a "fine specimen of ornamental brick work", valued at £24 and occupied by Rev D.H. Lee Warner. The Walsingham Union House, a workhouse, contained 164 staff and occupants.[6]
The Walsingham Union workhouse
On 12 April 1836 Walsingham Poor Law Union was formed, and a new Walsingham Union workhouse was built at Great Snoring in the same year to accommodate up to 250 inmates. The architect was William Thorold, and he based it on Sampson Kempthorne's model cruciform plan published by the Poor Law Commissioners in 1835. Four accommodation wings were joined to a central supervisory area, allowing segregation of different categories of inmate. Areas between the wings were used as exercise space. Workshops and service buildings around the edge gave the overall site an octagonal shape. To the east of the site a chapel was built.[7]
After the closure of the workhouse, the buildings had various uses: as a smallpox hospital in the 1930s; by the Civil Defence in the 1950s; and most recently, plans to convert the building into 35 flats were approved in 1961. But no conversion was carried out and the buildings have now been demolished.[8]
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Great Snoring) |
- Great Snoring Parish Council website
- "Great Snoring St Mary The Virgin Church", The Snoring Villages - Little & Great Snoring in Norfolk
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Great Snoring in Norfolk". NorfolkCoast.co.uk. http://www.norfolkcoast.co.uk/location_norfolk/vp_greatsnoring.htm. Retrieved 31 March 2006.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1170846: Church of St Mary, The Street
- ↑ National Heritage List 1373698: The Old Rectory, Barsham Road
- ↑ Betjeman, John; A Passion for Churches, BBC TV, 7 December 1974, 13.20min-14.02min. Rebroadcast BBC Four (2006)
- ↑ Ernie Rusdale (2004). "Roll of Honour - Norfolk - Great Snoring". http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Norfolk/GreatSnoring.html. Retrieved 15 April 2006.
- ↑ White, Francis (1854). History, Gazetteer and Directory of Norfolk. ISBN 0-7153-4742-X. pages 714-15 viewed at [1] on 15 April 2006
- ↑ "Great Snoring and Little Snoring in Norfolk, England - Walsingham Union Workhouse". Great and Little Snoring. http://www.the-snorings.co.uk/info/workhouse.html. Retrieved 16 April 2006.
- ↑ Peter Higginbotham (2001). "Walsingham Poor Law Union and Workhouse". History of the Workhouse in Britain. http://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.html?Walsingham/Walsingham.shtml. Retrieved 11 November 2008.