Caistor St Edmund is a village and former

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 ...

on the

River Tas The River Tas is a river which flows northwards through South Norfolk in England - towards Norwich. The area is named the Tas Valley after the river. The name of the river is back-formed from the name of village of Tasburgh (E. Ekwall, English-R ...

, 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. The parish covers an area of and had a population of 270 people in 116 households at the 2001 Census which increased to 289 people by the 2011 Census. On 1 April 2019, the parish was merged with

Bixley Bixley is a former civil parish now in the parish of Caistor St Edmund and Bixley, in the South Norfolk district of Norfolk, England. According to the 2001 census and 2011 census it contained 60 households and a population of 144. It covered ...

to form Caistor St Edmund and Bixley.

History

The remnants of the capital of the

Iceni tribe The Iceni ( , ) or Eceni were a Brittonic tribe of eastern Britain during the Iron Age and early Roman era. Their territory included present-day Norfolk and parts of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and bordered the area of the Corieltauvi to the we ...

,''

Venta Icenorum Venta Icenorum (, literally "marketplace of the Iceni") was the civitas or capital of the Iceni tribe, located at modern-day Caistor St Edmund in the English county of Norfolk. The Iceni inhabited the flatlands and marshes of that county and are ...

'', are located nearly and are now in the care of the Norfolk Archaeological Trust. It is presumed that the 'Stone Street'

Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

runs from

Dunwich Dunwich is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB around north-east of London, south of Southwold and north of Leiston, on the North Sea coast. In the Anglo-Saxon period, Dunwich was t ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

to Caistor St Edmund. Caistor St Edmund's name hails back to its Romans origins with 'Caistor' referring to the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

for a Roman settlement, added to a dedication for the East Anglian King, Saint Edmund. 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 ...

, Caistor St Edmund is recorded as a settlement of 26 households 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 de ...

Henstead Henstead is a village near Kessingland and the A12 in the civil parish of Henstead with Hulver Street, in the county of Suffolk, England. It has a church called Church of St Mary which is a Grade I listed building. It has very few housing areas ...

. The village was divided between Ralph de Beaufour and

Bury St Edmunds Abbey The Abbey of Bury St Edmunds was once among the richest Benedictine monasteries in England, until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. It is in the town that grew up around it, Bury St Edmunds in the county of Suffolk, England. It was ...

. Caistor Old Hall was built in 1612 for Thomas Pettus, 1st Baronet and remained in the Pettus family until the Nineteenth Century when it passed to the Spurrells of

Thurgarton Thurgarton is a small village in rural Nottinghamshire, England. The village is close to Southwell, and Newark-on-Trent and still within commuting distance to Nottingham. It is served by Thurgarton railway station. According to the 2001 censu ...

St. Edmund's Church

Caistor St. Edmund's Parish Church is of

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

origin and is dedicated to Saint Edmund. Throughout the years, parts of the Roman ruins located around the village have been cannibalised to further extend the church which leaves it with an almost unique character.

Notable Residents

Boudica Boudica or Boudicca (, known in Latin chronicles as Boadicea or Boudicea, and in Welsh as ()), was a queen of the ancient British Iceni tribe, who led a failed uprising against the conquering forces of the Roman Empire in AD 60 or 61. She ...

- Iceni rebel (possible)

In popular culture

Steve Coogan's comedy character,

Alan Partridge Alan Gordon Partridge is a comedy character portrayed by the English actor Steve Coogan. A parody of British television personalities, Partridge is a tactless and inept broadcaster with an inflated sense of celebrity. Since his debut in 1991, h ...

was married in St. Edmund's Church.

War Memorial

Caistor St Edmund's War Memorial is located in St. Edmund's Churchyard and was unveiled in 1922 by Reverend John Warren. It lists the following names for the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

: * Second-Lieutenant Richard La Fontaine Whittall (1893-1915), Headquarters,

52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division The 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division was an infantry division of the British Army that was originally formed as the Lowland Division, in 1908 as part of the Territorial Force. It later became the 52nd (Lowland) Division in 1915. The 52nd (Lowland ...

* Cadet J. Derek Corbould-Warren (d.1917),

Royal Military College, Sandhurst The Royal Military College (RMC), founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire, was a British Army military academy for training infantry a ...

* Corporal George Franklin (1885-1914), 1st Battalion,

Royal Norfolk Regiment The Royal Norfolk Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army until 1959. Its predecessor regiment was raised in 1685 as Henry Cornwall's Regiment of Foot. In 1751, it was numbered like most other British Army regiments and named ...

* Lance-Corporal Arthur C. Fuller (1883-1915),

Military Foot Police The Royal Military Police (RMP) is the corps of the British Army responsible for the policing of army service personnel, and for providing a military police presence both in the UK and while service personnel are deployed overseas on operations ...

* Private William Leech (1894-1917), 4th Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment * Private Walter Ellis (1894-1917), 5th Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment * Rifleman Charles E. Back (1897-1917), 21st Battalion,

King's Royal Rifle Corps The King's Royal Rifle Corps was an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army that was originally raised in British North America as the Royal American Regiment during the phase of the Seven Years' War in North America known in the United St ...

* Rifleman Walter W. J. Blake (1898-1918), 3rd Battalion,

Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own) The Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own) was an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army formed in January 1800 as the "Experimental Corps of Riflemen" to provide sharpshooters, scouts, and skirmishers. They were soon renamed the "Rifle ...

And, the following for the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

: * Sergeant Cedric R. Minns (1921-1943), No. 218 (Gold Coast) Squadron RAF Peck, M. (2017). Retrieved November 19, 2022. http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Norfolk/CaistorStEdmund.html

References

External links

Defra walk around the siteNorfolk Archaeological TrustSouth Norfolk CouncilCaistor St Edmund Parish Council
--> {{authority control Villages in Norfolk Former civil parishes in Norfolk South Norfolk