Heacham is a village of 4,707 inhabitants, located in north-west
NorfolkNorfolk 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, including The Wash. The county town is Norwich...
,
EnglandEngland 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 and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, between
King's LynnKing's Lynn is a town and port in Norfolk, England. The town has been known variously as Bishop's Lynn and Lynn Regis, while it is frequently referred to by locals as simply Lynn, the Celtic word for lake....
, to the south and
HunstantonHunstanton, often pronounced by locals as and known colloquially as 'Sunny Hunny', is a seaside town in Norfolk, England, facing The Wash....
, about to the north, on
The WashThe Wash is the square-mouthed estuary on the northwest margin of East Anglia on the east coast of England, where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire. It is among the largest estuaries in the United Kingdom...
.
History
There is evidence of settlement in the Heacham area, for around the last 5,000 years, with numerous
NeolithicThe Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BCE in the Middle East that is traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age...
and latter
Bronze AgeThe Bronze Age of a culture is the period when the most advanced metalworking in that culture utilised bronze. This could either have been based on the local smelting of copper and tin from ores, or trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere...
finds throughout the parish. This is presumably due to the fact the local geology consists of primarily
cretaceousThe Cretaceous , Latin language for "chalky", usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago . In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows on the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
sands and underlying chalk meaning that there is very little surface water for miles in any direction. This can also be seen along the banks of the Caudle Carr located just outside Dersingham where numerous archaeological sites have been found. Running water in conjunction with the fertile surrounding lands, made it an ideal settling location for early man. Evidence of habitation continues through the
Iron ageIn archaeology, the Iron Age is the prehistoric period in any area during which cutting tools and weapons were mainly made of iron or steel. The adoption of this material coincided with other changes in society, including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles.The...
into the
Romano-BritishRomano-British culture describes the culture that arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest of AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a people Celtic in language and custom...
era. But the beginnings of the present village most probably did not occur until around the 5th century with the
Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066...
invasion and the beginnings of present-day
East AngliaEast Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...
.
The name of the village purportedly derives from a 12th-century Norman lord, Geoffrey de Hecham. Although this is possible, it is unlikely as the name ‘de Hecham' literally means ‘of Hecham' implying the place name was already in existence. The name Hecham was in use at the time of the Little
Domesday BookThe Domesday Book is the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William I of England, or William the Conqueror...
as part of the Smithdon hundred (Smetheduna) which was written around 1086. Prior to the Norman Conquest, Heacham was controlled by two Saxons, Alnoth, and Toki the king's
thegnThe term thegn , from OE þegn, ðegn "servant, attendant, retainer", is commonly employed by historians to describe either an aristocratic retainer of a king or nobleman in Anglo-Saxon England, or as a class term, the majority of the aristocracy below the ranks of ealdormen and high-reeves...
whos estates were based around his hall in
Castle AcreCastle Acre is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is situated on the River Nar some north of the town of Swaffham...
. After the conquest the lands passed to William de Warenne and his brother-in-law Frederick de Warenne who was later killed by
Hereward the WakeHereward the Wake , known in his own times as Hereward the Outlaw or Hereward the Exile, was an 11th-century Anglo-Saxon leader involved in resistance to the Norman conquest of England...
.
The name itself however is more likely to have derived from the name of the river, The Hitch, in conjunction with the Old English word ham or hamm which meant either
homestead, village, manor, estate or
enclosure, land hemmed by water or marsh or higher ground, land in a river bend, river meadow, promontory.
In 1085 the manor of Heacham was given by William de Warenne to a cell of
CluniacCluny Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in Cluny, department of Saône-et-Loire, France.It was founded in 910 by William I, Count of Auvergne, who installed Abbot Berno and placed the abbey under the immediate authority of Pope Sergius III...
monks from the Priory of St Pancras of
LewesLewes is the county town of East Sussex, England and gives its name to the Local government district in which it lies. The settlement has a long history as a bridging point and as a market town, and is today an important communications hub, and tourist-orientated town.-History:The site that is...
to pray for the soul of his late wife Gundreda. After the
dissolutionThe Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, denotes the administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, nunneries and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their income, disposed...
, around 1541, the manor passed to
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of NorfolkThomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk was a prominent Tudor politician. He was uncle to Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, two wives of Henry VIII, and played a major role in the machinations behind these relationships. After falling from favour, he was stripped of his dukedom and imprisoned in the...
.
Church
The Church of St Mary the Virgin is the most ancient building left in the village. It dates from 1230 and is
NormanThe term Norman architecture is used to categorise styles of Romanesque architecture developed by the Normans in the various lands under their dominion or influence in the 11th and 12th centuries. In particular the term is traditionally used for English Romanesque architecture...
in design.
In the cupola on the tower hangs a bell (circa 1100), the oldest in East Anglia, and the seventh-oldest in the country. The transepts have been lost as well as from the east end, and the roof has been lowered.
The Oxford historian of science
Robert GuntherRobert Theodore Gunther was a historian of science and founder of the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford....
is buried in the village.
Pocahontas
Heacham also has historic ties to
PocahontasPocahontas was a Virginia Indian woman notable for having assisted colonial settlers at Jamestown in present-day Virginia. She was converted to Christianity and married the English settler John Rolfe. After they traveled to London, she became famous in the last year of her life...
, who married
John RolfeJohn Rolfe was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia and is known as the husband of Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Confederacy.No one knows what John Rolfe...
in 1614. The Rolfes are buried in the Heacham Church.
Beaches
Heacham started to become popular as a
seaside resortA seaside resort is a resort located on the coast. Where a beach is the primary focus for tourists, it may be called a beach resort.- History of the seaside resort :...
with the Victorians due to the opening of the
railway lineFor the article about the rails that trains run on see rail tracksRailway line is a term applied to railways with various meanings which lead to confusion in Wikipedia.It may mean...
between
King's LynnKing's Lynn is a town and port in Norfolk, England. The town has been known variously as Bishop's Lynn and Lynn Regis, while it is frequently referred to by locals as simply Lynn, the Celtic word for lake....
and
HunstantonHunstanton, often pronounced by locals as and known colloquially as 'Sunny Hunny', is a seaside town in Norfolk, England, facing The Wash....
in the early 1860s. This culminated in the building of the Jubilee Bridge in 1887 to replace an old wooden bridge as a result of oversubscriptions from parishioners in celebration of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Heacham is still popular today as a seaside resort with both the North Beach (Jubilee) Road and South Beach Road being lined with caravan parks.
The beach at Heacham is situated on the east banks of
The WashThe Wash is the square-mouthed estuary on the northwest margin of East Anglia on the east coast of England, where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire. It is among the largest estuaries in the United Kingdom...
; this means it is one of the few beaches in eastern England where the sun sets over the sea instead of over land. As such, with the right weather conditions, beautiful sunsets can be viewed.
On 29 July 1929 Miss Mercedes Gleitze became the first woman to swim
the WashThe Wash is the square-mouthed estuary on the northwest margin of East Anglia on the east coast of England, where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire. It is among the largest estuaries in the United Kingdom...
. Originally aiming for Hunstanton she finally came ashore at Heacham after battling treacherous tides for over 13 hours.
Heacham was severely affected by the
North Sea flood of 1953The North Sea flood of 1953 and the associated storm combined to create a major natural disaster which affected the coastlines of the Netherlands and England on the night of 31 January – 1 February 1953...
, where nine people died in the village, as a result of the sea breaking through its defences.
Norfolk Lavender
Norfolk Lavender Ltd was founded in 1932. Linn Chilvers supplied the plants and the labour. Francis Dusgate of Fring Hall provided the land. The first
lavenderThe lavenders are a genus of 39 species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae, native to the Mediterranean region south to tropical Africa and to the southeast regions of India. The genus includes annuals, herbaceous plants, subshrubs, and small shrubs...
field was planted on Dusgate's land at Fring and in 1936 Dusgate acquired Caley Mill on the
River HeachamThe River Heacham is in the North West of the County of Norfolk. It source is in the village of Bircham Newton , 25 meters above sea level. The river is 6.8 miles long from the source to the pools behind the tidal flaps at North beach, Heacham...
and the ground around it, not for the building but for the land. Lavender has been grown there ever since. A kiosk was erected from which bunches of lavender were sold to passing
pre-warThe term pre-war is usually applied to the most recent or significant war in a culture's history.It is, however, often used for the period before World War I or the Interwar period before the outbreak of World War II, i.e. before 1939 or 1940....
traffic. By 1936 Caley Mill was already disused and no significant repairs were carried out until 1953/4 after the new road (the
A149The A149 is an 'A-class' road, and one of the most scenic roads in Norfolk. It links the maritime towns of Kings Lynn and Great Yarmouth, mainly hugging the North Norfolk coastline, and cuts through the Norfolk Broads.-Kings Lynn to Wells next the Sea:...
) had been put through cutting the lavender field in half. It was at that time that the new lay-by and kiosk were constructed. Further repairs and restoration work were carried out at the Mill in 1977-78 and in the late 1980s. From the early 1990s onwards it has broadened its range to include other typical
EnglishEngland 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 and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
floral fragrances. These are sold all over Britain and exported all over the world.
External links