Ashby with Oby is a
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...
in the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
of
Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
, which is located some 5 km or 3 miles north of
Acle
Acle ( ) is a market town on the River Bure on the Norfolk Broads in Norfolk, located halfway between Norwich and Great Yarmouth. It has the only bridge across the River Bure between Wroxham and Great Yarmouth.Ordnance Survey (2005). ''OS Explorer ...
and 15 km or 9 miles north-west of
Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...
. It named for the
deserted mediaeval villages of Ashby and Oby, with their lost churches.
Geography
The civil parish has an area of , part of which is in
The Broads National Park
The Broads (known for marketing purposes as The Broads National Park) is a network of mostly navigable rivers and lakes in the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Although the terms "Norfolk Broads" and "Suffolk Broads" are correctly use ...
. The
River Bure
The River Bure is a river in the county of Norfolk, England, most of it in the Broads.Ordnance Survey (2005). ''OS Explorer Map OL40 - The Broads''. . The Bure rises near Melton Constable, upstream of Aylsham, which was the original head of ...
forms the western boundary, beyond which is the parish of
Upton with Fishley
Upton with Fishley is a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk, consisting of the former parishes of Upton and Fishley.
It covers an area of and had a population of 660 in 272 households at the 2001 census,Thurne
Thurne is a small village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is located on the River Thurne in The Broads, some west of the town of Great Yarmouth and east of the city of Norwich.
The villages name means 'Thorn-bush'.
The ...
to the north-west,
Repps with Bastwick
Repps with Bastwick is a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It comprises the adjacent villages of Bastwick and Repps, which are situated some north-west of the town of Great Yarmouth and north-east of the city of Norwich. The pari ...
to the north,
Rollesby to the north-east and
Clippesby
Clippesby is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of in Fleggburgh, in the Great Yarmouth district, in the county of Norfolk, England. It located on the B1152 and surrounded by the Norfolk Broads. The village consists largely of ...
to the east.
The parish is almost all farmland, with a few small areas of woodland and a flat topography. The farmland is mostly arable, with some large fields, but the southern portion is drained marshland. This has smaller fields separated by drainage
ditch
A ditch is a small to moderate divot created to channel water. A ditch can be used for drainage, to drain water from low-lying areas, alongside roadways or fields, or to channel water from a more distant source for plant irrigation. Ditches ar ...
es, which in Norfolk are called ''dikes''. Many of these are still meadows, under permanent grass.
There is no
nucleated settlement A nucleated village, or clustered settlement, is one of the main types of settlement pattern. It is one of the terms used by geographers and landscape historians to classify settlements. It is most accurate with regard to planned settlements: its c ...
, but only a scatter of farmsteads. The B1152
Acle
Acle ( ) is a market town on the River Bure on the Norfolk Broads in Norfolk, located halfway between Norwich and Great Yarmouth. It has the only bridge across the River Bure between Wroxham and Great Yarmouth.Ordnance Survey (2005). ''OS Explorer ...
to
Martham
Martham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated some north-west of the town of Great Yarmouth and north-east of the city of Norwich.
The villages name means 'marten homestead/village' or 'weasel/marten he ...
road runs through the east side of the parish and is its link to the outside world; the rest of the parish is served by a small network of narrow country lanes, leading off this and connecting to
Thurne
Thurne is a small village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is located on the River Thurne in The Broads, some west of the town of Great Yarmouth and east of the city of Norwich.
The villages name means 'Thorn-bush'.
The ...
and
Repps only.
In the
2001 census, the parish had a population of 69 in 28 households. At the 2011 Census the population of the parish remained at less than 100, and was included in the total for the civil parish of
Thurne
Thurne is a small village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is located on the River Thurne in The Broads, some west of the town of Great Yarmouth and east of the city of Norwich.
The villages name means 'Thorn-bush'.
The ...
.
History
A group of eight
ring ditch
In archaeology, a ring ditch is a trench of circular or penannular plan, cut into bedrock. They are usually identified through aerial photography either as soil marks or cropmarks. When excavated, ring ditches are usually found to be the ploughedâ ...
es in the north of the parish have been interpreted as a ploughed-out
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
round barrow
A round barrow is a type of tumulus and is one of the most common types of archaeological monuments. Although concentrated in Europe, they are found in many parts of the world, probably because of their simple construction and universal purpose. ...
cemetery. Back then, the area was part of an island -the ''Isle of Flegg'', which was surrounded by shallow sea and
salt marsh
A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated ...
.
Cropmarks indicating a possible Roman farmstead were identified in 2007, and metal detecting has recovered Roman coins on the site which is next to the old salt marsh boundary.
The substantial Anglo-Saxon villages of Ashby and Oby were listed in the
Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
as ''Ascheby'' and ''Obei'', and were in the West Flegg
Hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...
.
. Ashby was a large village for the time, with 23.8 households. Its
overlord
An overlord in the English feudal system was a lord of a manor who had subinfeudated a particular manor, estate or fee, to a tenant. The tenant thenceforth owed to the overlord one of a variety of services, usually military service or serje ...
was
St Benet's Abbey
St Benet's Abbey was a medieval monastery of the Order of Saint Benedict, also known as St Benet's at Holme or Hulme. It was situated on the River Bure within the Broads in Norfolk, England. St Benet is a medieval English version of the name of ...
just up the river, and one of the
tenants-in-chief
In medieval and early modern Europe, the term ''tenant-in-chief'' (or ''vassal-in-chief'') denoted a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as oppos ...
was the bishop of Norfolk who was still based in
Thetford
Thetford is a market town and civil parish in the Breckland District of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road between Norwich and London, just east of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, covering an area of , in 2015 had a population of 24,340 ...
in 1086. Oby was larger, with 31.3 households, and in 1086 was mostly held by
Roger Bigod of Norfolk
Roger Bigod (died 1107) was a Norman knight who travelled to England in the Norman Conquest. He held great power in East Anglia, and five of his descendants were Earl of Norfolk, earls of Norfolk. He was also known as Roger Bigot, appearing as suc ...
except for lands owned by the abbey.
King Canute
Cnut (; ang, Cnut cyning; non, Knútr inn rÃki ; or , no, Knut den mektige, sv, Knut den Store. died 12 November 1035), also known as Cnut the Great and Canute, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norwa ...
had donated these landholdings to the abbey, which retained possession until the
Dissolution
Dissolution may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Books
* ''Dissolution'' (''Forgotten Realms'' novel), a 2002 fantasy novel by Richard Lee Byers
* ''Dissolution'' (Sansom novel), a 2003 historical novel by C. J. Sansom Music
* Dissolution, in mu ...
when they passed to the
Bishop of Norwich
The Bishop of Norwich is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Norwich in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers most of the county of Norfolk and part of Suffolk. The bishop of Norwich is Graham Usher.
The see is in the ...
.
Walter Suffield
Walter Suffield (died 19 May 1257) was a medieval Bishop of Norwich.
Life
Suffield was a canonist at Paris before his election to the see of Norwich about 9 July 1244. He was consecrated on 26 February 1245.[Lord of the Manor
Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...]
of Ashby, William de Sparham, to have a private chapel in his own house with its own priest. This was the present Ashby Hall, although nothing mediaeval survives there. The village was located between this and the church, which was on Thurne Road to the south-east.
Both villages failed and were deserted in unknown circumstances in the later Middle Ages. Oby church was abandoned in the second half of the 16th century, and demolished. In 1604, the parishes of Ashby, Oby and Thurne were united into one
ecclesiastical parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish priest ...
with the two
township
A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries.
Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...
s of Ashby-and-Oby and Thurne. However the church at Ashby remained in use as a
chapel of ease
A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently.
Often a chapel of ea ...
, with its graveyard, and confusion later arose about which of the two churches had been which.
Ashby church was intact in around 1740, when the Norfolk antiquarian
Francis Blomefield
Rev. Francis Blomefield (23 July 170516 January 1752), FSA, Rector of Fersfield in Norfolk, was an English antiquarian who wrote a county history of Norfolk: ''An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk''. It includes ...
visited and left a brief description which he had published in 1810. In 1790, there was a land transaction which involved the churchyard being given into secular ownership,
William Faden William Faden (1749 – 1836) was an English cartographer and a publisher of maps. He was the royal geographer to King George III. He replaced Thomas Jefferys in that role.
The title of "geographer to the king" was given to various people in th ...
published a map of Norfolk in 1797, which also indicated that the church was out of use by then. In 1854, ruins were still visible. In 1882 there was an archaeological excavation, by which time only a portion of churchyard wall left above ground. The site subsequently became a ploughed field. It is unusual for a Norfolk church extant in the 18th century to vanish completely in this way, indicating that a predatory landlord was involved.
In 1820, the consolidated parish of Thurne with Ashby and Oby was subject to
Enclosure
Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or " common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
. An ancient area of
common land
Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect Wood fuel, wood, or to cut turf for fuel.
A person ...
attached to Asbby was lost, and the poor people of the township were compensated with the income from three acres (1.2 hectares) which was fetching £6 in the 1850s (£600 in 2021 values). The vanished common is remembered by Heath Farm and Heath Road.
Governance
For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the
district
A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...
of
Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...
. In 1988 the Oby part of the parish came under the aegis of the
Broads Authority
The Broads Authority is the agency which has statutory responsibility for the Broads in England. Originally, the Nature Conservancy Council (now Natural England), pressed for a special authority to manage the Broads which had been neglected for a ...
while Ashby did not, thus re-establishing a boundary which had been abolished in 1604.
The township of Ashby and Oby became a
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...
under the
Local Government Act 1894
The Local Government Act 1894 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London. The Act followed the reforms carried out at county level un ...
, part of the East and West Flegg Rural District. The latter
rural district
Rural districts were a type of local government area – now superseded – established at the end of the 19th century in England, Wales, and Ireland for the administration of predominantly rural areas at a level lower than that of the Ad ...
proved too small to be viable, and was united with the Blofield Rural District in 1935 to create the Blofield and East and West Rural District. This in turn was abolished in 1974, and the parish incorporated into Great Yarmouth.
The 1894 Act set up civil parishes with
parish councils, having elected representatives and with a salaried official called a ''parish clerk'' to administer routine affairs. However it could be that the eligible voters of a very thinly populated parishes were able to meet together in one place, in which case there was no need for elections of representatives and a ''Parish Meeting'' was set up instead. The parish clerk of the Ashby and Oby Parish Meeting in 2021 was a lady residing at Ashby Hall, which demonstrates historical continuity since this was the seat of the
Lord of the Manor
Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...
in the Middle Ages.
Public Services and Amenities
The only public amenity consists of a post box at the west end of Boundary Road, opposite the entrance to Harrison’s Farm Lane.
There is no bus service.
The footpath running along the bank of the
River Bure
The River Bure is a river in the county of Norfolk, England, most of it in the Broads.Ordnance Survey (2005). ''OS Explorer Map OL40 - The Broads''. . The Bure rises near Melton Constable, upstream of Aylsham, which was the original head of ...
is part of the
Weavers' Way
The Weavers' Way is a long-distance footpath in Norfolk, England. Much of the Weavers’ Way footpath follows the old trackbed of the Aylsham to Great Yarmouth railway line, which was operated by the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway an ...
long distance footpath. Two short canals, called ‘’dikes’’ but not simply drainage ditches, run off the river and originally gave boat access to farmsteads. The northern one is on the parish boundary, and served Boundary House Farm which is now part of a
caravan park
Caravan or caravans may refer to:
Transport and travel
*Caravan (travellers), a group of travellers journeying together
**Caravanserai, a place where a caravan could stop
*Camel train, a convoy using camels as pack animals
*Convoy, a group of veh ...
. The southern one is called ''Oby Dike'' or ''South Oby Dike''. These provide commercial mooring for boats.
There is a craft pottery, ''Oby Pottery'', at Harrison's Farm (2021) which specialises in
stoneware
Stoneware is a rather broad term for pottery or other ceramics fired at a relatively high temperature. A modern technical definition is a Vitrification#Ceramics, vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refracto ...
and
raku ware
is a type of Japanese pottery traditionally used in Japanese tea ceremonies, most often in the form of ''chawan'' tea bowls. It is traditionally characterised by being hand-shaped rather than thrown, fairly porous vessels, which result from low ...
.
Lost Churches
Oby Church
Oby church was abandoned in the second half of the 16th century, and demolished. The latest reference to its being in use dates from 1552. It was located at Oby Manor Farm, where there is a 17th-century barn which is now single-storey with a modern roof but which has apparently been cut down from a taller building. The interior south wall has fragments of carved stonework including
chamfer
A chamfer or is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces.
Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, fu ...
s, and the exterior south wall has re-used
ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
stonework. This was salvage from the demolished church. The actual site of the church in relation to the farm buildings is unknown.
Ashby Church
The church at Ashby was dedicated to
St Mary the Virgin. (This causes confusion with the church at
Ashby St Mary
Ashby St Mary, historically Ascebei, is a small village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The civil parish has an area of and in the 2001 census had a population of 297 in 115 households, the population increasing to 316 in 120 ...
.) It was located on the north side of the Thurne Road and east of Repps Road, just east of a clump of trees which itself is east of a bungalow. The site is now a ploughed field, and there is nothing to see.
The
1976 drought allowed
cropmarks
Cropmarks or crop marks are a means through which sub-surface archaeological, natural and recent features may be visible from the air or a vantage point on higher ground or a temporary platform. Such marks, along with parch marks, soil marks an ...
to be photographed which outlined the foundations of the lost church. These revealed two, otherwise unknown, phases of building. The first one involved a single nave with an
apsidal chancel and a
round tower
A fortified tower (also defensive tower or castle tower or, in context, just tower) is one of the defensive structures used in fortifications, such as castles, along with curtain walls. Castle towers can have a variety of different shapes and ful ...
, resembling the 12th century
church at Hales. Later in the Middle Ages, the chancel was substantially extended to form a three-bay square-ended and buttressed structure as wide as the nave. The latter was extended to the west over the demolished round tower, and a new square tower was built. A south porch was provided.
The archaeological investigation in 1822 traced a nave wall for 90 feet (27 metres), and the west wall for 30 feet (9 metres). Also traced were the foundations of a square west tower, with diagonal corner buttresses. An area of black and yellow floor tiling, laid in a zig-zag pattern "similar to those used in
Martham
Martham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated some north-west of the town of Great Yarmouth and north-east of the city of Norwich.
The villages name means 'marten homestead/village' or 'weasel/marten he ...
church, only smaller" was uncovered.
The Norfolk antiquarian
Francis Blomefield
Rev. Francis Blomefield (23 July 170516 January 1752), FSA, Rector of Fersfield in Norfolk, was an English antiquarian who wrote a county history of Norfolk: ''An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk''. It includes ...
visited in about 1740 when the church was still standing, and left a brief description which did not include architectural details. He mentioned three grave-slabs and two tombs in the chancel, another grave-slab apparently in the nave, and the font.
Grave-slabs in the chancel:
‘’Orate pro anima Williami Clypesby, Armigerii, qui obit 2 die Julii 1455." (Pray for the soul of William Clypesby, knight, who died 2 July 1455.)
"Orate pro anima Williami Clypesby, qui obit 24 die mensis Septembri 1479." (Pray for the soul of William Clypesby, who died 24 September 1479.)
"Here lyeth buried the body of Anne, late wife to Daniel Shanke, of Oby, Gentleman, one of the daughters of Sir James Hales of the city of Canterbury in Kent, Knight, and one of the judges of the court of common pleas at Westminster, which said Anne, died 29th December 1599." The heraldry on the slab was of Shanke (
gules
In heraldry, gules () is the tincture with the colour red. It is one of the class of five dark tinctures called "colours", the others being azure (blue), sable (black), vert (green) and purpure (purple).
In engraving, it is sometimes depict ...
, a
fess
In heraldry, a fess or fesse (from Middle English ''fesse'', from Old French ''faisse'', from Latin ''fascia'', "band") is a charge on a coat of arms (or flag) that takes the form of a band running horizontally across the centre of the shield.Wo ...
between three escallops,
or),
impaling
Impalement, as a method of torture and execution, is the penetration of a human by an object such as a stake, pole, spear, or hook, often by the complete or partial perforation of the torso. It was particularly used in response to "crimes aga ...
Hales (gules, three arrows or, feathered
argent
In heraldry, argent () is the tincture of silver, and belongs to the class of light tinctures called "metals". It is very frequently depicted as white and usually considered interchangeable with it. In engravings and line drawings, regions to b ...
).
There were two tombs in the chancel, one on the north side and one on the south and both without an epigraph or heraldry. They were described to Blomefield as belonging to "The Lord and Lady of Oby".
A grave-slab "in the church" (nave):
"Orate pro Catherina filia Johannes Spilman Armigerii, quondam uxoris Williamis Clipesby Armigerii, postea uxoris Edmundii Paston Armigerii, quae obit 18th Aprilis 1491". (Pray for Catherine the daughter of John Spilman knight, once wife of William Clipesby and then wife of Edmund Paston knight, who died 18 April 1491.)
The font had a carved
escutcheon
Escutcheon may refer to:
* Escutcheon (heraldry), a shield or shield-shaped emblem, displaying a coat of arms
* Escutcheon (furniture), a metal plate that surrounds a keyhole or lock cylinder on a door
* (in medicine) the distribution of pubic ha ...
displaying an
orle Orle may refer to:
Places
* Orle, GrudziÄ…dz County, a village in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, north-central Poland
* Orle, Nakło County, a village in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, north-central Poland
* Orle, Radziejów County, a village i ...
and
martlet
A martlet in English heraldry is a mythical bird without feet that never roosts from the moment of its drop-birth until its death fall; martlets are proposed to be continuously on the wing. It is a compelling allegory for continuous effort, expre ...
s.
Listed buildings
left, 180px, Wiseman's Mill
The parish has five listed buildings.
References
* Office for National Statistics & Norfolk County Council (2001).
Census population and household counts for unparished urban areas and all parishes'. Retrieved 2 December 2005.
External links
*
A vision of Ashby With Oby*
{{Civil Parishes of Great Yarmouth
Civil parishes in Norfolk
Borough of Great Yarmouth