Norfolk Hundreds

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

WAYLAND HUNDRED.

This Hundred has in its centre the small market town of Watton, and was anciently called Wanelunt, or Waneland, from the oozy nature of its soil, which is now well drained and cultivated, most of the waste and commons being enclosed about the beginning of the present century. It is about eight miles in length and breadth, except on its eastern side, near Hingham, where it is only four miles in width. It is bounded on the south by Shropham, on the west by Grimshoe and South Greenhoe, on the north by the latter, and on the east by Mitford and Forehoe Hundreds.

It forms the Deanery of Breckles, in the Archdeaconry of Norwich; and in the reign of Edward I., it had a bailiff and two coroners. Petty Sessions are held every alternate Wednesday at Watton, one year at the George Inn, and the next year at the Crown Inn. Mr. W. P. Pillans, of Swaffham, is clerk to the magistrates.

There are in this Hundred sixteen 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]

@ The population of this Hundred, in 1831, was 6824. Its annual value, as assessed to the PROPERTY TAX, was £48,709, in 1815, and £47,406 in 1842. It is in Hockham Police Division.

* UNIONS.- Ashill, Saham-Toney, and Threxton, are in Swaffham Union, and the other thirteen parishes are in WAYLAND UNION, which comprises also twelve parishes in Shropham Hundred, which see. The 25 parishes of Wayland Union comprise an area of about 60,000 acres, and had 11,168 inhabitants, in 1841, of whom 5510 were males, and 5658 females.

Their average annual expenditure, from 1832 to 1835, was £9450: and for the three years ending March, 1839, £4426. Their expenditure for the quarter ending June, 1844, was £1747. The Union Workhouse is at Rockland All Saints, and was built in 1836, at the cost of about £4000. It has room for 300 inmates, but in summer has seldom half that number. Mr. Samuel Caley, of Attleborough, is Union Clerk and Superintendent Registrar; Mr. Ezekiel Page is master of the Workhouse; and the District Registrars are Mr. Henry Stebbings, of Carbrooke, and Mr. George Myhill, of Attleborough.

WAYLAND ASSOCIATION for the promotion of Agriculture, and the encouragement of Industry and Good Conduct in Servants and Labourers, holds its meetings at Watton. The Hon. Fras. Baring is president, and Mr. William Massey, secretary.

Notes

• Some placenames in the transcription (of pages 361 to 362) above are given below together with their standard spelling :-
  Ellingham (Little)/Little Ellingham
• The hundred name is also seen spelt as "Weyland" in some documents.

For more information see :-

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

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Copyright © Mike Bristow.
September 2014