Gresham, Norfolk
Encyclopedia
Gresham is a village and civil parish
in North Norfolk
, England
, five miles (8 km) south-west of Cromer
.
A predominantly rural parish, Gresham centres on its medieval church of All Saints. The village also once had a square 14th century castle
, a watermill
and a windmill
. The moat
and some ruins of the castle survive.
, plus -ham, meaning a settlement.
In the Domesday Book
of 1086, Gresham is recorded as one of the holdings of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey
.
Sir Edmund Bacon of Baconsthorpe
held the manor. After his death in 1336 or 1337, there was much fighting over his property, which included the manor
of Gresham. A William Moleyns married Bacon's daughter Margery and tried unsuccessfully to deprive John Burghersh, the son of Bacon's other daughter and heiress Margaret, of his inheritance. A partition of Bacon's property was made between his heirs in the 35th year of King Edward III
, and when the division between Moleyns and Burghersh was complete, Gresham went to Margery, who died in 1399. She granted Gresham to Sir Philip Vache
for nine years after her death, but in 1414 his widow still held it and Sir William Moleyns agreed to buy it from Margery's executors for 920 marks
. He held it for two years, but did not complete the payment. The manor then fell into a complicated contract for the future marriage of Moleyns's daughter Katherine which did not take place, and Thomas Chaucer
(c. 1367–1434), Speaker of the House of Commons, and the son of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer
, acquired the manor of Gresham and sold it to William Paston. (Thomas Chaucer was married to a granddaughter of Maud Bacon, almost certainly another daughter of Edmund Bacon.) However, Robert Hungerford, Lord Moleyns, then claimed it and seized it by force.
Margaret Paston, in one of the Paston Letters
, writing to her husband John Paston in a letter dated 19 May 1448, says:
The James Gresham here referred to is James Gresham, gentleman, of Holt
, who appears often in the Paston Letters as a confidential agent.
Eight months later, when Paston's attempts to recover the manor through negotiation and legal action had failed, he sent his wife to occupy "a mansion" in the parish. In response, Moleyns sent an armed force which the Pastons claimed amounted to a thousand men, attacked the house, which was badly damaged, and expelled Margaret Paston.
Writing to her husband in a letter dated September 28, Margaret Paston says:
Moleyns was able to hold onto possession of Gresham for three years.
In 1620, the manor was sold to the Batt family, in which it has remained ever since. The present lord of the manor
is Richard Batt.
A curious case of 1786 in the Court of King's Bench called The King against the Inhabitants of Gresham was to do with the master-servant relationship in the case of William Thompson, a settled inhabitant of Gresham until 1780, who had entered the service of a Mr Creemer of Beeston Regis
and later became a pauper.
The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales
(1870–1872) described Gresham:
Twelve men of Gresham were killed in the First World War, of whom five were members of the Royal Norfolk Regiment
. Of the six men of the village killed in the Second World War, three were sons of Lieutenant-Colonel Reginald Cossley Batt. A war memorial stands in the churchyard.
The records of the Aylmerton and Gresham School from 1874 to 1991 are held in the Norfolk Record Office.
es in Norfolk
.
The church contains one of the East Anglian seven sacrament fonts, in which there is much interest. Scenes represented on it include a baptism, a holy eucharist, and parishioners clustering around a neighbour's deathbed.
The church was built on a pagan site, and in 1910 the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia was shown an ancient polished axe which had been dug up in the churchyard and a chipped celt
which had been built into the church tower. Walter Johnson, in Byways in British Archaeology, comments that "Its presence there was probably accidental, but it is well to recall the Breton
practice of building stone axes into chimneys to ward off lightning
".
In 1940, the executors of Joseph Cox of Gresham presented Norwich Castle Museum with a prehistoric handled beaker
of the Bronze Age
which had been found near Gresham.
Gresham was the site of a famous clerical battle in the 1940s. Although it was then seen as an Anglo-Catholic
parish, the inside walls of the church are now bare and whitewashed, due to the efforts of the squire of the day, Colonel Batt, who was a determined Protestant
, while his parish priest was an Anglo-Catholic. The Colonel demanded that all high church
decorations be removed, the clergyman refused, and Batt took the matter to a Consistory Court
and won. The case became famous, but it was one of the last of its kind.
The parish register
s for the years 1559 to 1969 are held in the Norfolk Record Office at Norwich
.
For centuries, the church had its own rector
, but it now shares a clergy
man, who lives at West Runton
, with neighbouring villages. It is still used for religious services, with Morning Prayer at 11 a.m. on the first and third Sundays of each month and Holy Communion (Order 1, Traditional) at the same time on every second and fourth Sunday.
The village is also the ancestral home of the famous Norfolk family of Gresham, whose members included Sir John Gresham
, founder of Gresham's School
, and Sir Thomas Gresham
, founder of Gresham College
and the Royal Exchange
. The Gresham family moved to Holt
in the fifteenth century. According to Francis Blomefield in An essay towards a topographical history of the county of Norfolk (1808), James Gresham, the grandfather of Sir John Gresham, was "the son of John Gresham, Gent., of Gresham".
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The remains of a fortified house called Gresham Castle are near the village, opposite the Chequers Pub. It is thought to have been similar to the neighbouring Baconsthorpe Castle
, and both were moat
ed.
The castle was built by Sir Edmund Bacon
after 1319, but it stood on the site of an earlier castle. The Paston family acquired it in the 15th century, and later it was looted. Little of the castle remains above ground, and much of the site is overgrown. Bacon's castle was about forty metres square, with round towers at the four corners and a moat
. The moat survives, is twelve to fifteen feet wide, and still contains water. The central platform is about 2,378 square metres in area, while the round towers were about eleven metres in diameter.
, on a site later known as Old Watermill Farm, in Lower Gresham. In 1819 the mill was grinding flour
from wheat
with two pairs of French burr stones
. By 1977, nothing remained of this mill except the water channel and some foundations.
There was also a windmill in the parish, which stood on one of the highest points in the county of Norfolk, and it was reported in 1864 that "from it may be distinctly seen 36 churches and objects at a distance off 25 miles."
In 1828, the two mills were advertised together:
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...
in North Norfolk
North Norfolk
North Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, United Kingdom. Its council is based in Cromer. The council headquarters can be found approximately out of the town of Cromer on the Holt Road.-History:...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, five miles (8 km) south-west of Cromer
Cromer
Cromer is a coastal town and civil parish in north Norfolk, England. The local government authority is North Norfolk District Council, whose headquarters is in Holt Road in the town. The town is situated 23 miles north of the county town, Norwich, and is 4 miles east of Sheringham...
.
A predominantly rural parish, Gresham centres on its medieval church of All Saints. The village also once had a square 14th century castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
, a watermill
Watermill
A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...
and a windmill
Windmill
A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Originally windmills were developed for milling grain for food production. In the course of history the windmill was adapted to many other industrial uses. An important...
. The moat
Moat
A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, other building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices...
and some ruins of the castle survive.
History
The name of Gresham is derived from a local stream known as the Gur BeckGur Beck
Gur Beck is a minor watercourse which rises in the north of the English county of Norfolk. It is a tributary of the Scarrow Beck. Its spring is a little east of the North Norfolk village of West Beckham. It eventually merges after with the Scarrow Beck at Sustead. There is one watermill on the beck...
, plus -ham, meaning a settlement.
In the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
of 1086, Gresham is recorded as one of the holdings of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey
William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey
William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Seigneur de Varennes is one of the very few proven Companions of William the Conqueror known to have fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066...
.
Sir Edmund Bacon of Baconsthorpe
Baconsthorpe
Baconsthorpe is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is 6 km south-east of Holt, 8 km south of Sheringham and 32 km north of Norwich....
held the manor. After his death in 1336 or 1337, there was much fighting over his property, which included the manor
Manorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...
of Gresham. A William Moleyns married Bacon's daughter Margery and tried unsuccessfully to deprive John Burghersh, the son of Bacon's other daughter and heiress Margaret, of his inheritance. A partition of Bacon's property was made between his heirs in the 35th year of King Edward III
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
, and when the division between Moleyns and Burghersh was complete, Gresham went to Margery, who died in 1399. She granted Gresham to Sir Philip Vache
Philip de la Vache
Philip de la Vache was an English courtierSir Philip de la Vache, KG was the son of Sir Richard de la Vache, a well-to-do Buckinghamshire landowner who had acquired estates in Chalfont St Giles and Aston Clinton. In 1390 Philip married in Chudleigh, Devon Elizabeth Clifford, daughter of Sir Lewis...
for nine years after her death, but in 1414 his widow still held it and Sir William Moleyns agreed to buy it from Margery's executors for 920 marks
Mark (money)
Mark was a measure of weight mainly for gold and silver, commonly used throughout western Europe and often equivalent to 8 ounces. Considerable variations, however, occurred throughout the Middle Ages Mark (from a merging of three Teutonic/Germanic languages words, Latinized in 9th century...
. He held it for two years, but did not complete the payment. The manor then fell into a complicated contract for the future marriage of Moleyns's daughter Katherine which did not take place, and Thomas Chaucer
Thomas Chaucer
Thomas Chaucer was the Speaker of the English House of Commons and son of Geoffrey Chaucer and Philippa Roet.-Life:...
(c. 1367–1434), Speaker of the House of Commons, and the son of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
, acquired the manor of Gresham and sold it to William Paston. (Thomas Chaucer was married to a granddaughter of Maud Bacon, almost certainly another daughter of Edmund Bacon.) However, Robert Hungerford, Lord Moleyns, then claimed it and seized it by force.
Margaret Paston, in one of the Paston Letters
Paston Letters
The Paston Letters are a collection of letters and papers from England, consisting of the correspondence of members of the gentry Paston family, and others connected with them, between the years 1422 and 1509, and also including some state papers and other important documents.- History of the...
, writing to her husband John Paston in a letter dated 19 May 1448, says:
The James Gresham here referred to is James Gresham, gentleman, of Holt
Holt, Norfolk
Holt is a market town and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The town is north of the city of Norwich, west of Cromer and east of King's Lynn. The town is on the route of the A148 King's Lynn to Cromer road. The nearest railway station is in the town of Sheringham where access to the...
, who appears often in the Paston Letters as a confidential agent.
Eight months later, when Paston's attempts to recover the manor through negotiation and legal action had failed, he sent his wife to occupy "a mansion" in the parish. In response, Moleyns sent an armed force which the Pastons claimed amounted to a thousand men, attacked the house, which was badly damaged, and expelled Margaret Paston.
Writing to her husband in a letter dated September 28, Margaret Paston says:
Moleyns was able to hold onto possession of Gresham for three years.
In 1620, the manor was sold to the Batt family, in which it has remained ever since. The present lord of the manor
Lord of the Manor
The Lordship of a Manor is recognised today in England and Wales as a form of property and one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined and may be held in moieties...
is Richard Batt.
A curious case of 1786 in the Court of King's Bench called The King against the Inhabitants of Gresham was to do with the master-servant relationship in the case of William Thompson, a settled inhabitant of Gresham until 1780, who had entered the service of a Mr Creemer of Beeston Regis
Beeston Regis
Beeston Regis is a village and civil parish in the North Norfolk district of Norfolk, England. It is about a mile east of Sheringham, Norfolk and near the coast. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 1,091...
and later became a pauper.
The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales
Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales
The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales is a substantial topographical dictionary first published between 1870 and 1872, edited by the Reverend John Marius Wilson. It contains a detailed description of England and Wales...
(1870–1872) described Gresham:
Twelve men of Gresham were killed in the First World War, of whom five were members of the Royal Norfolk Regiment
Royal Norfolk Regiment
The Royal Norfolk Regiment, originally formed as the Norfolk Regiment, was an infantry regiment of the British Army. The Norfolk Regiment was created on 1 July 1881 as the county regiment of Norfolk...
. Of the six men of the village killed in the Second World War, three were sons of Lieutenant-Colonel Reginald Cossley Batt. A war memorial stands in the churchyard.
The records of the Aylmerton and Gresham School from 1874 to 1991 are held in the Norfolk Record Office.
Church
The parish church of All Saints is one of 124 round-tower churchRound-tower church
Round-tower churches are a type of church found mainly in England, almost solely in East Anglia; of about 185 surviving examples in the country, 124 are in Norfolk, 38 in Suffolk, 6 in Essex, 3 in Sussex and 2 each in Cambridgeshire and Berkshire. There is evidence of about twenty round-tower...
es in Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
.
The church contains one of the East Anglian seven sacrament fonts, in which there is much interest. Scenes represented on it include a baptism, a holy eucharist, and parishioners clustering around a neighbour's deathbed.
The church was built on a pagan site, and in 1910 the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia was shown an ancient polished axe which had been dug up in the churchyard and a chipped celt
Celt (tool)
Celt is an archaeological term used to describe long thin prehistoric stone or bronze adzes, other axe-like tools, and hoes.-Etymology:The term "celt" came about from what was very probably a copyist's error in many medieval manuscript copies of Job 19:24 in the Latin Vulgate Bible, which became...
which had been built into the church tower. Walter Johnson, in Byways in British Archaeology, comments that "Its presence there was probably accidental, but it is well to recall the Breton
Breton people
The Bretons are an ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Brythonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain in waves from the 3rd to 6th century into the Armorican peninsula, subsequently named Brittany after them.The...
practice of building stone axes into chimneys to ward off lightning
Lightning
Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...
".
In 1940, the executors of Joseph Cox of Gresham presented Norwich Castle Museum with a prehistoric handled beaker
Beaker (archaeology)
A beaker is a small ceramic or metal drinking vessel shaped to be held in the hands. Archaeologists identify several different types including the butt beaker, the claw beaker and the rough-cast beaker, however when used alone the term usually refers to the pottery cups associated with the European...
of the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
which had been found near Gresham.
Gresham was the site of a famous clerical battle in the 1940s. Although it was then seen as an Anglo-Catholic
Anglo-Catholicism
The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism describe people, beliefs and practices within Anglicanism that affirm the Catholic, rather than Protestant, heritage and identity of the Anglican churches....
parish, the inside walls of the church are now bare and whitewashed, due to the efforts of the squire of the day, Colonel Batt, who was a determined Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
, while his parish priest was an Anglo-Catholic. The Colonel demanded that all high church
High church
The term "High Church" refers to beliefs and practices of ecclesiology, liturgy and theology, generally with an emphasis on formality, and resistance to "modernization." Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term has traditionally been principally associated with the...
decorations be removed, the clergyman refused, and Batt took the matter to a Consistory Court
Consistory
-Antiquity:Originally, the Latin word consistorium meant simply 'sitting together', just as the Greek synedrion ....
and won. The case became famous, but it was one of the last of its kind.
The parish register
Parish register
A parish register is a handwritten volume, normally kept in a parish church or deposited within a county record office or alternative archive repository, in which details of baptisms, marriages and burials are recorded.-History:...
s for the years 1559 to 1969 are held in the Norfolk Record Office at Norwich
Norwich
Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...
.
For centuries, the church had its own rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...
, but it now shares a clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
man, who lives at West Runton
West Runton
West Runton is a village in North Norfolk, England, approximately ¼ of a mile from the North Sea coast.-Overview:West Runton and East Runton together form the parish of Runton. The village straddles the A149 North Norfolk coast road and is 2½ miles west of Cromer and 1½ miles east of Sheringham...
, with neighbouring villages. It is still used for religious services, with Morning Prayer at 11 a.m. on the first and third Sundays of each month and Holy Communion (Order 1, Traditional) at the same time on every second and fourth Sunday.
Parish
Much of the parish of Gresham belongs to Richard Batt, lord of the manor of eighteen villages. The estate at Gresham has been in his family since 1620.The village is also the ancestral home of the famous Norfolk family of Gresham, whose members included Sir John Gresham
John Gresham
Sir John Gresham was an English merchant, courtier and financier who worked for King Henry VIII of England, Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell. He was Lord Mayor of London and founded Gresham's School.-Life:...
, founder of Gresham's School
Gresham's School
Gresham’s School is an independent coeducational boarding school in Holt in North Norfolk, England, a member of the HMC.The school was founded in 1555 by Sir John Gresham as a free grammar school for forty boys, following King Henry VIII's dissolution of the Augustinian priory at Beeston Regis...
, and Sir Thomas Gresham
Thomas Gresham
Sir Thomas Gresham was an English merchant and financier who worked for King Edward VI of England and for Edward's half-sisters, Queens Mary I and Elizabeth I.-Family and childhood:...
, founder of Gresham College
Gresham College
Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in central London, England. It was founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham and today it hosts over 140 free public lectures every year within the City of London.-History:Sir Thomas Gresham,...
and the Royal Exchange
Royal Exchange (London)
The Royal Exchange in the City of London was founded in 1565 by Sir Thomas Gresham to act as a centre of commerce for the city. The site was provided by the City of London Corporation and the Worshipful Company of Mercers, and is trapezoidal, flanked by the converging streets of Cornhill and...
. The Gresham family moved to Holt
Holt, Norfolk
Holt is a market town and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The town is north of the city of Norwich, west of Cromer and east of King's Lynn. The town is on the route of the A148 King's Lynn to Cromer road. The nearest railway station is in the town of Sheringham where access to the...
in the fifteenth century. According to Francis Blomefield in An essay towards a topographical history of the county of Norfolk (1808), James Gresham, the grandfather of Sir John Gresham, was "the son of John Gresham, Gent., of Gresham".
Gresham Castle
The remains of a fortified house called Gresham Castle are near the village, opposite the Chequers Pub. It is thought to have been similar to the neighbouring Baconsthorpe Castle
Baconsthorpe Castle
Baconsthorpe Castle is a fortified manor house, now a ruin, to the north of the village of Baconsthorpe, Norfolk, England. Norfolk, England. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building, and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument....
, and both were moat
Moat
A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, other building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices...
ed.
The castle was built by Sir Edmund Bacon
Edmund Bacon
Edmund Norwood Bacon was a noted American urban planner, architect, educator and author. During his tenure as the Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission from 1949 to 1970, his visions shaped today's Philadelphia, the city in which he was born, to the extent that he is...
after 1319, but it stood on the site of an earlier castle. The Paston family acquired it in the 15th century, and later it was looted. Little of the castle remains above ground, and much of the site is overgrown. Bacon's castle was about forty metres square, with round towers at the four corners and a moat
Moat
A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, other building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices...
. The moat survives, is twelve to fifteen feet wide, and still contains water. The central platform is about 2,378 square metres in area, while the round towers were about eleven metres in diameter.
Mills
Gresham had a small watermillWatermill
A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...
, on a site later known as Old Watermill Farm, in Lower Gresham. In 1819 the mill was grinding flour
Flour
Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...
from wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
with two pairs of French burr stones
Millstone
Millstones or mill stones are used in windmills and watermills, including tide mills, for grinding wheat or other grains.The type of stone most suitable for making millstones is a siliceous rock called burrstone , an open-textured, porous but tough, fine-grained sandstone, or a silicified,...
. By 1977, nothing remained of this mill except the water channel and some foundations.
There was also a windmill in the parish, which stood on one of the highest points in the county of Norfolk, and it was reported in 1864 that "from it may be distinctly seen 36 churches and objects at a distance off 25 miles."
In 1828, the two mills were advertised together:
Further reading
- Richmond, Colin, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge, 1991) pp. 47–63
- Rowling, M., 'New Evidence on the disseisin of the Pastons from Gresham’, in Norfolk Archaeology, 40 (1989)
External links
- Gresham at heritage.norfolk.gov.uk
- All Saints' Church, Gresham at norfolkchurches.co.uk
- All Saints', Gresham at geograph.org.uk
- Photographs of All Saints, Gresham at flickr.com
- More photographs of All Saints' Church at geebeephoto.com
- Gresham All Saints, with photographs at roundtowerchurches.de
- Map of Gresham at Multimap
- Gresham village war memorial at roll-of-honour.com