Aylmerton is a village 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 in the area of North Norfolk and lies south of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

, south-west of

Cromer Cromer ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish on the north coast of the English county of Norfolk. It is north of Norwich, north-northeast of London and east of Sheringham on the North Sea coastline. The local government authorities are Nor ...

and east of Holt. The parish is bordered by the parishes of Beeston Regis and Runton to the north, West Beckham to the west,

Felbrigg Felbrigg is a small village just south of Cromer in Norfolk, England.''OS Explorer Map 24'' (Edition A 1997) – ''Norfolk Coast Central''. . The Danish name means a 'plank bridge'. Historians believe that the original village was clustered aro ...

to the east and Gresham and Sustead to the south. The centre of the village is ¾ miles south of the A148 King’s Lynn to

road with Sandy Lane and Beechwood Avenue north of it. The nearest railway stations are West Runton at the bottom of Sandy Lane,

at and Roughton Road at . The civil parish has an area of 6.86 square kilometres and in the 2001 census the population was 435 in 178 households, increasing to 458 at the 2011 Census. For the purposes of local government, the parish is in North Norfolk, whose headquarters are in Cromer.

History

The village name derives from 'Aethelmaer's farm/settlement'. Aylmerton has an entry 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 manus ...

of 1085. In the great book Aylmerton is recorded by the names Almartune, and Almertune, the main land holder being William de Warren and the main tenant

Roger Bigot Roger Bigod (died 1107) was a Norman knight who travelled to England in the Norman Conquest. He held great power in East Anglia, and five of his descendants were earls of Norfolk. He was also known as Roger Bigot, appearing as such as a witness t ...

. The survey also states that there is ½ a church. In the Domesday survey fractions were used to indicate that the entry, in this case a church, was on an estate that lay within more than one parish.

Parish church

The parish church is called St

John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

and is a 15th-century building. It has a round flint tower, thought to be over 700 years old. The church stands above the village on the side of a small hillside. The priest’s room, which is over the porch, can be entered via the original ironbound door in the nave. The

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

windows date from the middle of the 14th century, and there are some beautiful carvings, a traceried screen dating 1500 and four elaborate bench ends with

poppy A poppy is a flowering plant in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. Poppies are herbaceous plants, often grown for their colourful flowers. One species of poppy, '' Papaver somniferum'', is the source of the narcotic drug o ...

heads which were carved over 400 years ago. There are the remains of a transept on the north side of the church, reduced when the nave was rebuilt.

Stone cross

One mile south of the village on Church Road, at a small junction of the Lower Gresham to Metton lane, is an ancient cross which has been restored. Aylmerton wayside cross (TG181388) is on the parish boundary with Gresham, and was said to be a guide to Walsingham. Three roads meet here, and a rough track heading westwards is said to have been part of the pilgrims' way heading to the holy shrines to be found there. In the fields near the cross are many shallow pits. These known locally as the 'Shrieking Pits', because of their reputation for being haunted by the ghost of a Stone Age woman.

War Memorial

Aylmerton has two War Memorials, a plaque inside St. John the Baptist Church and a stone cross in the churchyard. They commemorate the following from 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 ...

: * Private Albert C. Medlar (1889-1916), 4th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment * Private George W. Tooke (d.1915), Depot,

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 ...

* Private Henry Durrant (1893-1917), 1st Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment * Private Herbert Cooper (d.1915), 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment 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 opposi ...

: * Flying Officer Richard E. Dent (1919-1941), Royal Air Force Reserve * Sergeant-Air Gunner Basil C. Marling (1915-1943), No. 40 Squadron RAF * Private Raymond L. Tuck (d.1944), 5th Battalion,

King's Regiment (Liverpool) The King's Regiment (Liverpool) was one of the oldest line infantry regiments of the British Army, having been formed in 1685 and numbered as the 8th (The King's) Regiment of Foot in 1751. Unlike most British Army infantry regiments, which were ...

* Private Harold Hunt (1906-1943), 4th Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment * Private Ernest R. Atkins (1920-1944), 5th Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment

References

http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Norfolk/Aylmerton

External links

Information from Genuki Norfolk
on Aylmerton.
St John the Baptist's on the European Round Tower Churches Website
* {{authority control North Norfolk Villages in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk