Morningthorpe (sometimes Morning Thorpe) 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 ...

, now in the parish of ''Morningthorpe and Fritton'' in the

South Norfolk South Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Long Stratton. The population of the Local Authority District was 124,012 as taken at the 2011 Census. History The district was formed on 1 April 197 ...

district, in the county 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 ...

, England. It is situated some south of the city 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 ...

. The parish includes the villages of Morningthorpe and Fritton. The two villages are 1 km apart. The village's name origin is uncertain perhaps, 'outlying farm/settlement of the pool dwellers', 'outlying farm/settlement of the boundary dwellers' or 'outlying farm/settlement of Maera's people'. The civil parish has an area of and in the 2001 census had a population of 253 in 94 households the population increasing to 267 at the 2011 Census. The churches of Morningthorpe St John the Baptist and Fritton St Catherine are two of 124 existing

round-tower church Round-tower churches are a type of church found mainly in England, mostly in East Anglia; of about 185 surviving examples in the country, 124 are in Norfolk, 38 in Suffolk, six in Essex, three in Sussex and two each in Cambridgeshire and Berkshi ...

es in

. The village was struck by an F1/T2 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day.

Morningthorpe round tower

Morningthorpe has a round tower rather larger than that at neighbouring Long Stratton: the tower appears to bulge out about halfway up, which, according to the article in ''Round Tower'' magazine September 2004, may be evidence of an octagonal tower built inside a round one. The article has photographs of repair work done to the tower in 1988 - one shows a corner of an "octagon" inner tower core, not bonded to the outside, while another suggests a bonded, and rounded, core. There are narrow openings in the tower with monolithic heads in worn pale stone, the openings filled with old-looking wooden boards pierced with vertical rows of round holes. Taylor & Taylor, ''Anglo-Saxon Architecture'' seek to assign this tower to the later Saxon period (or earlier Norman).

Civil parish

On 1 April 1935, the parish of Fritton was merged with Morning Thorpe. The new parish was renamed from "Morning Thorpe" to "Morningthorpe and Fritton" on 1 May 2012. In 1931 the parish of Morning Thorpe (prior to the merge) had a population of 110.

Notable people

The ornithologist

Howard Irby Leonard Howard Loyd Irby (13 April 1836 – 14 May 1905) was a British ornithologist and army officer. He specialised in the study of birds in southern Iberia. Life Irby was born in 1836 at Boyland Hall in Morningthorpe to Rear-Admiral Frederic ...

was born here in 1833 at Boyland Hall.H. M. Vibart, ‘Irby, Leonard Howard Loyd (1836–1905)’, rev. Alex May, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 27 Feb 2013
/ref> The hall was demolished in 1947. Paulina Irby, the campaigner for Bosnian Serb refugees was born here in 1831. British racing driver

St. John Horsfall St John Ratcliffe Stewart "Jock" Horsfall (31 July 1910 – 20 August 1949) was a British motor racing driver. 1920-30s In his early 20s, Horsfall began competing in British club level events and he won ''The Motor Trophy'' at the Motor Cycling C ...

was born here in 1910. The author Joseph Dickerson was born here in 1943. Tommy Hicks – later the entertainer

Tommy Steele Sir Thomas Hicks (born 17 December 1936), known professionally as Tommy Steele, is an English entertainer, regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star. After being discovered at the 2i's Coffee Bar in Soho, London, Steele reco ...

, and his family, were evacuated here from London during World War Two.

References

* Ordnance Survey (1999). ''OS Explorer Map 237 - Norwich''. . * Office for National Statistics & Norfolk County Council (2001).
Census population and household counts for unparished urban areas and all parishes
'. Retrieved 2 December 2005.
Morningthorpe parish information
South Norfolk Council * http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Norfolk/Morning%20Thorpe

External links

* for Morningthorpe village * for Fritton village
Information from Genuki Norfolk
on Morningthorpe.
Information from Genuki Norfolk
on Fritton.
St John the Baptist's on the European Round Tower Churches Website

St Catherine's on the European Round Tower Churches Website
{{authority control Villages in Norfolk South Norfolk