Foxley is a village 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 English 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 ...

. The village is about 15 miles (24 km) north-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 See of Norwich, with ...

and 9 miles (14 km) south-east of

Fakenham Fakenham is a market town and civil parish in Norfolk, England. It is situated on the River Wensum, about north west of Norwich. The town is the junction of several local roads, including the A148 from King's Lynn to Cromer, the A1067 to Norw ...

. It covers an area of and had a population of 279 in 113 households at the 2001 census, increasing slightly to a population of 285 in 125 households at the 2011 Census. For the purposes of local government, it falls within the Upper Wensum Ward of

Breckland District Council 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 l ...

and the Elmham and Mattishall Division of

Norfolk County Council Norfolk County Council is the top-tier local government authority for Norfolk, England. Its headquarters are based in the city of Norwich. Below it there are 7 second-tier local government district councils: Breckland District, Broadland Distr ...

. The villages name means 'Fox wood/clearing'. The village is effectively divided into East and West Foxley by the

A1067 road A1, A-1, A01 or A.1. may refer to: Education * A1, the Basic Language Certificate of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages * Language A1, the former name for "Language A: literature", one of the IB Group 1 subjects * A1, ...

that was built as a bypass of it and the nearby village of

Bawdeswell Bawdeswell is a small rural village and civil parish in Norfolk, England. At the time of the 2011 census it had a population of 828 and an area of 487 hectares. The village is situated almost in the centre of Norfolk about northwest of Norw ...

. The nearest rail station is at Norwich while the nearest major shopping complex is located in Holt, roughly 14 miles north of the village. Much of the nearby northern sea coast is part of the

Norfolk Coast AONB The Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is a protected landscape in Norfolk, England. It covers over 450 km2 of coastal and agricultural land from The Wash in the west through coastal marshes and cliffs to the sand dunes at Wi ...

(Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The community of Cromer, on the coast, is approximately 40 minutes from Foxley by automobile; Hunstanton, also on the coast (but further north), is a slightly longer drive.

Historic sites

A Norfolk County Council report discusses the archaeology of the Parish and states that there is evidence of a settlement here in the Saxon period. "The earliest prehistoric finds date to the Neolithic ... there was activity in the parish from much earlier than the Saxon period". The oldest building is the former Chequers Pub (NHER 19249) from the 1700s but a survey found carpenters' marks in the interior from 1624. A report in the early 1870s provided this description of the village:

3½ ilesE by S of Elmham r. station. Post town, Bawdeswell ... Acres, 1,620. Real property, £2, 570. Pop., 278. Houses, 59. ... The church has a pinnacled tower, and is tolerable.

The same report also mentions the site of a WW II plane crash (NHER 20528), involving two bombers of the US Air Force that were stationed at Wendling, Norfolk. Grade II listed structures within the community are the Foxley War Memorial, the Church of St Thomas and Foxley Lodge, a former rectory constructed in the early 1840s. The style of the Lodge is Georgian, described in 1984 as "brick with slate roofs. Roughly square in plan. 2 storeys. 3 bays to each of 3 facades". The manor was restored in the 1930s; the property was operated as a dairy farm until some time before 2017. The property includes the seven bedroom manor, outbuildsings, orchards, and three gardens which were planned by Verity Hanson-Smith. The current Church of St Thomas was first built in the 1100s, probably on the site of a previous church from the Saxon period. The structure was extensively modified through the 1400s; some additional work was done in the 1600s and in the early 1800s. In the Listing Report of 1960, the church was described as "Flint with ashlar and some brick dressings. Slate and pantile roofs". In 2018, the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

was hoping that the care of this church would be accepted by The Diocesan Churches Trust. A five-minute drive from the village centre, Foxley Wood is a site of special scientific interest and the largest remaining area of

ancient woodland In the United Kingdom, an ancient woodland is a woodland that has existed continuously since 1600 or before in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (or 1750 in Scotland). Planting of woodland was uncommon before those dates, so a wood present in 16 ...

in Norfolk, England. Operated by the

Norfolk Wildlife Trust The Norfolk Wildlife Trust (NWT) is one of 46 wildlife trusts covering Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and Alderney. Founded in 1926, it is the oldest of all the trusts. It has over 35,500 members and eight local groups and it ma ...

, parts of the 123 hectare (300 acre) reserve are thought to be over 6000 years old, dating from the end of the last

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

. The reserve is a

Nature Conservation Review ''A Nature Conservation Review'' is a two-volume work by Derek Ratcliffe, published by Cambridge University Press in 1977. It set out to identify the most important places for nature conservation in Great Britain. It is often known by the initial ...

site and a National Nature Reserve.

Notes

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

External links

Villages in Norfolk Breckland District Civil parishes in Norfolk {{Norfolk-geo-stub