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Swaffham () is a
market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...
and
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 authorit ...
in the Breckland District and
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 ...
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 Nor ...
. It is situated east of
King's Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is located north of London, north-east of Peterborough, nor ...
and west 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 Episcopal see, See of ...
. The
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 authorit ...
has an area of and in the 2001 census had a population of 6,935 in 3,130 households, which increased to 7,258, in 3,258 households, at the 2011 census. 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, subdivision ...
of
Breckland Breckland in Norfolk and Suffolk is a 39,433 hectare Special Protection Area (SPA) under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. The SPA partly overlaps the 7,544 hectare Breckland Special Area of Conservation. As a la ...
.


History

The name of the town derives from 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 settlers in the mid-5th ...
''Swǣfa hām'' = "the homestead of the
Swabia Swabia ; german: Schwaben , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of ...
ns"; some of them presumably came with the Angles and
Saxons The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
. By the 14th and 15th centuries Swaffham had an emerging sheep and
wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. ...
industry. As a result of this prosperity, the town has a large market place. The market cross here was built by George Walpole, 3rd
Earl of Orford Earl of Orford is a title that has been created three times. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1697 when the naval commander Admiral of the Fleet Edward Russell was made Earl of Orford, in the County of Suffolk. He was c ...
and presented to the town in 1783. On the top is the statue of Ceres, the
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
goddess of the harvest. About 8 km to the north of Swaffham can be found the ruins of the formerly important
Castle Acre Priory Castle Acre Priory was a Cluniac priory in the village of Castle Acre, Norfolk, England, dedicated to St Mary, St Peter, and St Paul. It is thought to have been founded in 1089 by William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (the son of the 1st Earl ...
and
Castle Acre Castle Castle Acre Castle and town walls are a set of ruined medieval defences built in the village of Castle Acre, Norfolk. The castle was built soon after the Norman Conquest by William de Warenne, the Earl of Surrey, at the intersection of the R ...
. On the west side of Swaffham Market Place are several old buildings which for many years housed the historic Hamond's
Grammar School A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...
, as a plaque on the wall of the main building explains. The Hamond's Grammar School building latterly came to serve as the
sixth form In the education systems of England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepare for ...
for the Hamond's High School, but that use has since ceased. Harry Carter, the grammar school's art teacher of the 1960s, was responsible for a great number of the carved
village sign In many parts of England, an ornamental village sign is erected to announce the village name to those entering the village. They are typically placed on the principal road entrance or in a prominent location such as a village green. The desig ...
s that are now found in many of Norfolk's towns and villages, including Swaffham's own sign commemorating the legendary
Pedlar of Swaffham The Pedlar of Swaffham is an English folktale from Swaffham, Norfolk. The following text is taken from ''English Fairy and Other Folk Tales'', 1906, which in turn refers to the ''Diary of Abraham dela Pryme'', 1699: Sources The Pedlar of Swaffh ...
, which is in the corner of the market place just opposite the old school's gates. Carter was a distant cousin of the
archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...
and
egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religiou ...
Howard Carter Howard Carter (9 May 18742 March 1939) was a British archaeologist and Egyptologist who discovered the intact tomb of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun in November 1922, the best-preserved pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the ...
who spent much of his childhood in the town. The Swaffham Museum is a small, independent social history museum for Swaffham and the surrounding villages in Norfolk from the
Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with ...
to the modern. It has five galleries exhibiting local history and local geology as well as an
Egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native relig ...
room about
Howard Carter Howard Carter (9 May 18742 March 1939) was a British archaeologist and Egyptologist who discovered the intact tomb of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun in November 1922, the best-preserved pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the ...
and the Ancient Egyptians, celebrating the centenary year of Howard Carter discovering the
Tomb of Tutankhamun The tomb of Tutankhamun, also known by its tomb number, KV62, is the burial place of Tutankhamun (reigned c. 1334–1325 BC), a pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt, in the Valley of the Kings. The tomb consists of four chambers ...
in 1922. Swaffham was struck by a tornado measuring F1 on the
Fujita scale The Fujita scale (F-Scale; ), or Fujita–Pearson scale (FPP scale), is a scale for rating tornado intensity, based primarily on the damage tornadoes inflict on human-built structures and vegetation. The official Fujita scale category is deter ...
and T2 on the
TORRO scale The TORRO tornado intensity scale (or T-Scale) is a scale measuring tornado intensity between T0 and T11. It was proposed by Terence Meaden of the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (TORRO), a meteorological organisation in the United Kingdo ...
on 23 November 1981 during the 1981 United Kingdom tornado outbreak.


Folklore

Swaffham is one of the many locations for ''The Man Who Became Rich through a Dream'' folk tale ( Aarne-Thompson type 1645). The tale tells of a pedlar from Swaffham who dreamed for several consecutive nights that if he waited on
London Bridge Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It re ...
he would eventually hear good news. He travelled to London, and waited for several days on the bridge. Eventually a
shopkeeper A shopkeeper is a retail merchant or tradesman; one who owns or operates a small store or shop. Generally, shop employees are not shopkeepers, but are often incorrectly referred to as such. At larger companies, a shopkeeper is usually referred ...
asked him why he was waiting, and the man told of his dream. The shopkeeper laughed, and replied that he often dreamed that if he went to a certain
orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of ...
in Swaffham and started digging, he would find buried treasure. The pedlar returned to Swaffham, and found the treasure. In medieval folklore, a black, hairy dog called the
Black Shuck In English folklore, Black Shuck, Old Shuck, Old Shock or simply Shuck is the name given to a ghostly black dog which is said to roam the coastline and countryside of East Anglia, one of many such black dogs recorded in folklore across the Br ...
was rumoured to have wandered the three settlements of Swaffham,
Castle Acre Castle 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. It is east of the town of King's Lynn, west of the city of Norwich, and from London.Ordna ...
, and
Great Cressingham Great Cressingham is a Norfolk village which lies about of Watton, south of Swaffham and only off the A1065 arterial road just north of Hilborough. It is north west by road from Little Cressingham. In 2007 it had an estimated population o ...
, ambushing merchants who were on their way to large towns to sell their goods. There are still rumours of a puma-like black cat wandering around
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 Nor ...
and
Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to t ...
.


Parish church

The church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul is one of only a few churches that have angels carved in wood instead of stone around the top of the walls. The current building, dating from 1454, is built on the foundation of the original church. A wood carving of the “Pedlar of Swaffham” is also in the church.


Transport

Until 1968 the town was served by Swaffham railway station on the
Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern Ra ...
line from
King's Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is located north of London, north-east of Peterborough, nor ...
. Just after Swaffham, the line split into two, one branch heading south to
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, ...
, and the other east towards
Dereham Dereham (), also known as East Dereham, is a town and civil parish in the Breckland District of the English county of Norfolk. It is situated on the A47 road, about 15 miles (25 km) west of the city of Norwich and 25 miles (4 ...
. The railways were all closed as part of the
Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...
, though the possibility of rebuilding a direct rail link from Norwich to King's Lynn via Swaffham is occasionally raised. The east–west A47 Birmingham to Great Yarmouth road now avoids the town, using a northerly bypass opened in 1981. The A1065 Mildenhall to Fakenham road still passes through the centre of the town on its north–south route, intersecting with the A47 at a
grade separated In civil engineering (more specifically highway engineering), grade separation is a method of aligning a junction of two or more surface transport axes at different heights (grades) so that they will not disrupt the traffic flow on other tra ...
junction north of the town.


Sport and leisure

Swaffham has a
Non-League football Non-League football describes association football, football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is s ...
club Swaffham Town F.C. which plays at Shoemakers Lane. Swaffham Raceway, a former
greyhound The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurgenc ...
track, hosts
stock car racing Stock car racing is a form of automobile racing run on oval tracks and road courses measuring approximately . It originally used production-model cars, hence the name "stock car", but is now run using cars specifically built for racing. It or ...
.


Wind turbines and Green Britain Centre

Today the town is known for the presence of two large Enercon E-66
wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...
s. The first of these began operation in 1999 and the second in 2003. Together they generate more than three
megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...
s. The first of the wind turbines to be constructed was an Enercon E66/1500 with 1.5 MW generation capacity, 67 metres
nacelle A nacelle ( ) is a "streamlined body, sized according to what it contains", such as an engine, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft. When attached by a pylon entirely outside the airframe, it is sometimes called a pod, in which case it is attache ...
height and 66 metres rotor diameter. It was also built with an
observation deck An observation deck, observation platform, or viewing platform is an elevated sightseeing platform usually situated upon a tall architectural structure, such as a skyscraper or observation tower. Observation decks are sometimes enclo ...
just below the nacelle which was open for the public to climb during the 2000s and 2010s, the only wind turbine in the world to have such a facility. These two turbines have since been joined by an independent development of a further eight turbines at the village of
North Pickenham North Pickenham is a village in the Breckland district of mid-Norfolk, East Anglia, England. It lies three miles from the Georgian market town of Swaffham. At the 2001 census it had a population of 500 and an area of 1,015 hectares (3.92 squa ...
, three miles from Swaffham. The turbines were originally associated with the EcoTech Centre, a visitor centre which was opened in 1999. The centre hosted the 2008 British BASE jumping championships; contestants jumped from the roof of the observation deck. In 2008 the energy company Ecotricity took over the management of the site and in 2012 the visitor centre was renamed the Green Britain Centre. The centre provided a venue for school trips and event hire, and had educational displays focussing on sustainability in food, energy and transport. The height of the attraction's popularity was in 2016, when 22,000 people visited the centre and 8,000 climbed the turbine. In June 2018 it was announced that the centre had closed for financial reasons and that Ecotricity intended to hand the building back to Breckland District Council (BDC). The council subsequently put it up for rent or sale and discussed exchanging it with Swaffham Town Council in return for of building land. A proposal to convert the building into a leisure centre was considered by BDC but ultimately abandoned. In 2021 the building was sold to manufacturer Flexion Global for use as their headquarters. Shortly after the sale, Swaffham Town Council gave BCD a parcel of land next to the centre on which BDC intends to build a leisure centre.


Climate

As with the rest of the
British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isl ...
and East Anglia, Swaffham experiences a
maritime climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ...
with cool summers and mild winters. The nearest
Met Office The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is led by CEO Penelop ...
weather station to provide local climate data is
RAF Marham RAF Marham is a Royal Air Force station and military airbase near the village of Marham in the English county of Norfolk, East Anglia. It is home to No. 138 Expeditionary Air Wing (138 EAW) and, as such, is one of the RAF's "Main Operating Ba ...
, about west of the town centre. Temperature extremes in the Swaffham-Marham area range from in August 1990, down to during February 1956. The highest and lowest temperatures reported in the past decade are during August 2003, and during January 2010.


''Kingdom'' (TV series)

In the summer of 2006, location filming was done in the town for the
ITV1 ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the Channel 3 public broadcast service across all of the United Kingdom except for t ...
series '' Kingdom'', starring
Stephen Fry Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...
. In ''Kingdom'' the town is called Market Shipborough. The pub the ''Startled Duck'' in the TV series is better known as the ''Greyhound Inn'', in which the
Earl of Orford Earl of Orford is a title that has been created three times. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1697 when the naval commander Admiral of the Fleet Edward Russell was made Earl of Orford, in the County of Suffolk. He was c ...
created the first
coursing Coursing by humans is the pursuit of game or other animals by dogs—chiefly greyhounds and other sighthounds—catching their prey by speed, running by sight, but not by scent. Coursing was a common hunting technique, practised by the nobility, ...
club open to the public, in 1776. Peter Kingdom's office is Oakleigh House, near the town square (formerly the house of the Head Master of Hamond's Grammar School), with the coastal scenes filmed at Wells-next-the-Sea on the north Norfolk coast.


Notable people

*
Dominic Byrne Dominic Anthony Byrne (born 10 November 1972) is a British newsreader and presenter. He currently works on the Chris Moyles Breakfast show on Radio X, having previously worked as the newsreader for Capital London on the Capital FM Breakfast ...
, newsreader on '' The Chris Moyles Show'' * Michael Carroll, lottery winner *
Howard Carter Howard Carter (9 May 18742 March 1939) was a British archaeologist and Egyptologist who discovered the intact tomb of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun in November 1922, the best-preserved pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the ...
, archaeologist who discovered the tomb of
Tutankhamun Tutankhamun (, egy, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled ...
* Christopher Dawes, author of ''
Rat Scabies and The Holy Grail ''Rat Scabies And The Holy Grail'' is a 2005 book written by Christopher Dawes, published by Sceptre Books in the UK and Thunder's Mouth Press in the US. It is a gonzo-esque quest to find the Holy Grail by punk rock legend Rat Scabies, the one-t ...
'' *
Stephen Fry Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...
, actor and writer * W. E. Johns, author of the ''"
Biggles James Bigglesworth, nicknamed "Biggles", is a fictional pilot and adventurer, the title character and hero of the ''Biggles'' series of adventure books, written for young readers by W. E. Johns (1893–1968). Biggles made his first appearance ...
"'' books * William Methwold (1590–1653), born
South Pickenham South Pickenham is a small village and civil parish in the Breckland district of mid Norfolk, East Anglia, England. It has an area of 758 hectares (2.93 square miles) and it had a population of 101 in 40 households at the 2001 census. This had ...
,
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...
merchant * Hilda Plowright (1890-1973), actress *Sir
Arthur Knyvet Wilson Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson, 3rd Baronet, (4 March 1842 – 25 May 1921) was a Royal Navy officer. He served in the Anglo-Egyptian War and then the Mahdist War being awarded the Victoria Cross during the Battle of El Teb in F ...
, (1842–1921),
First Sea Lord The First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff (1SL/CNS) is the military head of the Royal Navy and Naval Service of the United Kingdom. The First Sea Lord is usually the highest ranking and most senior admiral to serve in the British Armed Fo ...


References


External links

*
Swaffham Town CouncilInformation from Genuki Norfolk on Swaffham
{{authority control Breckland District Market towns in Norfolk Wind farms in England Towns in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk