Bixley medieval settlement is a
deserted medieval village in
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 ...
, England, about south-east of
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
. It is a
Scheduled Monument
In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change.
The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...
.
History
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 manus ...
of 1086 recorded that there were 19 adult males in Bixley. The population, shown later from tax records, was small in the 14th and 15th centuries compared to other villages in the
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 des ...
. In 1524 there were five taxpayers.
[
Neighbouring settlements at ]Arminghall
Arminghall is a small village and former civil parish in the English county of Norfolk, around southeast of Norwich, now in the parish of Caistor St Edmund and Bixley, from April 1935 until April 2019 it was in Bixley parish. Most of the house ...
and Belhawe have also disappeared. It is thought that villages near Norwich became deserted at the end of the medieval period due to people migrating to the city.["Parish summary: Bixley"]
Norfolk Heritage Explorer. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
The church of St Wandregeselius is on the western edge of the site. Its tower dates from the early 14th century; the rest of the church dates from 1868. It is a Grade II* listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
. The roof and interior were destroyed by a fire in 2004."Heritage at risk: Church of St Wandregelius, Bixley - South Norfolk"
''National Heritage List for England''. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
Earthworks
Historic England
Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...
notes that the remains are "among the most extensive of their kind in this region of East Anglia." Most of the earthworks are east of a
green lane, part of a former road from Norwich to
Bungay, closed in 1800, that passes immediately west of the church. Remains can be discerned of several groups of two or three homesteads; the groups are apart. Between the groups there is evidence of small fields and other enclosures, and of a system of lanes.
[
The adult male population of the village in 1086, recorded in the Domesday Book, included three bordars and thirteen ]sokemen __NOTOC__
The term ''soke'' (; in Old English: ', connected ultimately with ', "to seek"), at the time of the Norman conquest of England, generally denoted "jurisdiction", but its vague usage makes it probably lack a single, precise definition.
A ...
: it is thought that this kind of population is shown by the arrangement of the settlement at Bixley.[
]
See also
*
References
{{reflist
Deserted medieval villages in Norfolk
Scheduled monuments in Norfolk