Wortham is a village and

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

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 ...

, England, close to the border with

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 ...

. Its church, St Mary the Virgin, lies about a mile north of the present-day village. It is one of 38 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

and the one with the greatest diameter in England.

History

In the time of

Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor ; la, Eduardus Confessor , ; ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon English kings. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066. Edward was the son of Æth ...

Wortham consisted of two parishes, each with its own church and parsonage. They had of

glebe Glebe (; also known as church furlong, rectory manor or parson's close(s))McGurk 1970, p. 17 is an area of land within an ecclesiastical parish used to support a parish priest. The land may be owned by the church, or its profits may be reserved ...

between them and a combined value of seven

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence o ...

s. After the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...

there were still two parishes, corresponding to the two

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 ...

manors: Southmoor, held by the Abbots of Bury, and Eastgate (Wortham Hall) held by the Barons of Rye. In 1769 the parishes were combined under William Evans, Rector of Eastgate. The

Saxon 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 ...

church in Southmoor disappeared and was never rebuilt, although the Rectory remained until 1785. A faculty was granted by 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 ...

to Rowland Holt (Patron) and Henry Patterson (Rector) for "taking down and excusing the rebuilding of one of the parsonages belonging to the Rectory of Wortham Edward w. Jervis annexed." This parsonage was stated to be above a mile from the church and built of stud and clay work and covered with a thatch. Wortham was the family seat of the Betts family. The village was home to the author

Richard Cobbold Richard Cobbold (1797 – 5 January 1877) was a British writer. Life Richard Cobbold was born in 1797 in the Suffolk town of Ipswich, to John (1746–1835) and the poet and writer Elizabeth (née Knipe) Cobbold (1764–1824). The Cobbolds we ...

between 1825 and 1877. In addition to a famous story of

Margaret Catchpole Margaret Catchpole (14 March 1762 – 13 May 1819) was a Suffolk servant girl, chronicler and deportee to Australia. Born in Suffolk, she worked as a servant in various houses before being convicted of stealing a horse and later escaping from Ips ...

, he published in 1860 ''The Biography Of A Victorian Village - Wortham'', which contains a series of drawings and character details of various members of the community during the mid-Victorian period. This is a useful source for genealogists. The novelist and agricultural writer

Doreen Wallace Doreen Eileen Agnew Wallace, (married name Rash; 1897 – 22 October 1989) was an English novelist, grammar school teacher and social campaigner.Norfolk Women in HistorRetrieved 17 September 2018 In more than 40 novels she is seen to explore exam ...

moved to Wortham in 1922 for her married life. The local public house is ''The Manor House''.

Public transport

Diss (4 miles/6.4 km) has the nearest railway station. The village is served by infrequent daytime, Monday-to-Saturday bus services to

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...

and Diss.Bus time
Retrieved 22 September 2018.
/ref>

References

External links

A reference to Wortham is available at www.british-history.ac.ukLocation and pictures at www.geograph.org.uk
* Betts of Wortham in Suffolk Villages in Suffolk Mid Suffolk District Civil parishes in Suffolk {{suffolk-geo-stub