Norfolk Hundreds

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

SHROPHAM HUNDRED

Is of an irregular oblong figure, about 14 miles in length, from east to west, and from 6 to 8 in breadth, being bounded on the west by Grimshoe, on the north by Wayland and Forehoe, on the east by Depwade, and on the south by Guiltcross Hundred.

The soil is various, but much of it is a light sand, watered by a number of small rivulets, which unite their streams on its southern boundary, near Quiddenham, in the Thet rivulet, which flows westward to the Little Ouse, at Thetford. The latter borough is at the south-west angle of Shropham Hundred, which is traversed throughout its whole length by the Norwich and Thetford turnpike, and the Norwich and Brandon Railway, which has a station at the improving town of Attleborough.

This Hundred forms, with that of Guiltcross, the Deanery of Rockland, in the archdeaconry of Norfolk.

Petty Sessions are held on the first Thursday of every month, one year at East Harling and the next year at Larlingford. Wm. Clarke, Esq., of Thetford, is clerk to the magistrates.

Shropham, written in Domesday-book Serepham, was in the fee of the castle-manor of Buckenham, from the Confessor's time till the reign of Henry VI.

It contains 21 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.

[There is more information about individual parishes]

* UNIONS.- The 12 parishes marked thus * are in WAYLAND UNION, which has its Workhouse at Rockland All Saints, as noticed at page 362 [description of Wayland Hundred]. When the census was taken in 1841, there were 36 persons in the Workhouse. Old and New Buckenham, Bridgham, Eccles, and Wilby, are in Guiltcross Union; and Brettenham, Kilverstone, and East and West Wretham, are in Thetford Union. (See page 401. [this is in Thetford Borough section])

+ The population of this Hundred, in 1831, was 8566. Its annual value, as assessed to the PROPERTY TAX, was £56,335, in 1815, and £55,168 in 1842. It is all in Hockham Police Division, except Old and New Buckenham, which are in that of Long Stratton.

Notes

Some placenames in the transcription (of pages 410 to 411) above are given below together with their standard spelling :-
Buckenham (New)/New Buckenham, Buckenham (Old)/Old Buckenham, Ellingham (Grt*)/Great Ellingham, Rockland All Sts/Rockland All Saints, Wretham (East)/East Wretham, Wretham (West)/West Wretham

For more information see :-

• General description and layout of Hundreds.
• Other hundred descriptions from White's 1845.

These pages are for personal use only. They may not be copied, and the links within them may not be harvested for use on your own web pages. Please see the Copyright Notice.

Copyright © Mike Bristow.
April 2006