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Holkham is a small village and civil parish in north Norfolk, England, which includes a stately home and estate, Holkham Hall, and a beach, Holkham Gap, at the centre of Holkham National Nature Reserve.


Geography

The parish has an area of and in the 2001 census had a population of 236 in 104 households. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of
North Norfolk North Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Cromer. The population at the 2011 Census was 101,149. History The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972. It was a ...
. The village of Holkham is located on the coast road (the A149) between Wells-next-the-Sea and
Burnham Overy Staithe Burnham Overy is a civil parish on the north coast of Norfolk, England. In modern times a distinction is often made between the two settlements of Burnham Overy Town, the original village adjacent to the medieval parish church and now reduced ...
. At one time the village was a landing with access to the sea via a tidal creek to the harbour at Wells. The creek succumbed to land reclamation, much of which created the grounds of the estate, starting in 1639 and ending in 1859 when the harbour at Wells was edged with a sea wall. The land west of the wall was subsequently turned to agricultural uses. Aerial photographs show traces of the creek in the topsoil, and the lake to the west of the hall appears to be based on a remnant of it. Now the village serves principally as the main entrance to the hall and deer park, and to Lady Anne's Drive which leads to the beach. Among the houses of the village are several estate-owned businesses, including a hotel ('The Victoria Inn') and art gallery. Holkham Hall is one of the principal Palladian houses of England, built for an ancestor of Thomas Coke, noted agricultural innovator and later 1st Earl of Leicester of Holkham. The hall is now the home of the 8th Earl and is surrounded by an attractive park, with herds of red and fallow deer, a lake that was once a tidal creek, several monuments and drives, and its own church. Both hall and park are open to the public. From the main coast road Lady Anne's Drive, a toll road owned by the Holkham Estate, crosses the reclaimed salt marshes to Holkham Gap. This is a gap in pine-fringed
sand dunes A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...
which form the outer coastline. From here, an uninterrupted sandy beach runs both ways to Wells and
Burnham Overy Staithe Burnham Overy is a civil parish on the north coast of Norfolk, England. In modern times a distinction is often made between the two settlements of Burnham Overy Town, the original village adjacent to the medieval parish church and now reduced ...
. To the west of the gap is a
nudist Naturism is a lifestyle of practising non-sexual social nudity in private and in public; the word also refers to the cultural movement which advocates and defends that lifestyle. Both may alternatively be called nudism. Though the two terms ar ...
section of beach.
Holkham railway station Holkham was a railway station which served the coastal village of Holkham in Norfolk, England. Opened by the West Norfolk Junction railway in 1866, it closed with the line in 1952. History The construction of the West Norfolk Junction Railwa ...
was located about halfway along Lady Anne's Drive (to the east). The railway line through to Holkham was built in 1864. The line made up part of 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 R ...
network, which ran from Wells-next-the-Sea, through Holkham and on to Burnham Market. The line was closed in 1952. Holkham Pines is the large belt of pine trees which runs west to east inland from the beach; the eastern end is known as Wells Woods. Holkham Freshmarsh is a series of wet meadows which sit inland from the pine belt, and north of the A149. They are bisected by Lady Anne's Drive, which gives access to the woods and the beach. The marshes are important for their wintering population of
pink-footed geese The pink-footed goose (''Anser brachyrhynchus'') is a goose which breeds in eastern Greenland, Iceland and Svalbard. It is migratory, wintering in northwest Europe, especially Ireland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and western Denmark. The na ...
, and have been designated a National Nature Reserve.


History


Celts

The last of the ancient Celts to inhabit
East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
were the tribe of the Iceni. They are believed responsible for the earthworks of the Roman Iron Age visible in the marsh. A Roman road runs along the west side of the estate. Their provincial capital under Roman occupation was Venta Icenorum near Norwich.


Anglo-Saxons

The ''
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...
'' for the years 449–454 records the arrival of large numbers of Angles and Jutes under Hengest and
Horsa Hengist and Horsa are Germanic peoples, Germanic brothers said to have led the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in their invasion of Great Britain, Britain in the 5th century. Tradition lists Hengist as the first of the Jutish kings of Kingdom of Kent ...
, defeating the British king, Vortigern, in 455. By about 600 the distribution of cruciform brooches, a diagnostic of Anglo-Jutish society, show that the culture had displaced the Celtic on the east coast of Britain, including coastal East Anglia. A similar displacement was true of Saxon culture in south-east Britain, diagnosed by saucer brooches. Two bands of Saxons penetrated into East Anglia, one down the rivers that empty into the Wash and the other into the centre. In the 7th century the Germanic kings of these regions were being converted to Christianity. The Anglisc or Englisc of East Anglia may already by that time have been divided into the "North Folk" and the "South Folk." In 654 the Christian king of East Anglia, Anna of East Anglia, was killed in battle against the last pagan king of Mercia. So great was his Christian affirmation that his four daughters renounced the world and became saints. Numerous lives of the saints relate that the youngest,
Saint Withburga Wihtburh (or Withburga) (died 743) was an East Anglia saint, princess and abbess who was possibly a daughter of Anna of East Anglia, located in present-day England. She founded a monastery at Dereham in Norfolk. A traditional story says that the ...
, was brought up at Holkham. She later founded a Benedictine nunnery at East Dereham and was eventually buried at Ely in 743. This is the first reference to Holkham. A church on the grounds of the estate, still used for worship, commemorates the saint. The existence of the saint is attested by the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...
, which for the year 798 records that the body of Wihtburga, sister of St. Aethelthryth, was found to be uncorrupted at Dereham 55 years after her death. The ''Chronicle'' and the historian,
Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...
, do not state the name of Holkham. It does appear as that in the Domesday Book, 1086, which means that it must precede Middle English. The element -ham is clearly identifiable as
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 settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
, "village, manor, home." The Holk- remains unidentified. A suggestion has been made that it comes from *hoelig, "holy", in honour of the saint, but it would not have been named that before she was one. The guidebook of the parish church (which is dedicated to Saint Withburga) says the area was originally called 'Wihtburgstowe' but later 'holc-ham' which the church guide translates as 'homestead in a hollow'.


Later Middle Ages

Medieval manuscripts concerning Holkham have been edited by William Hassall and Jacques Beauroy.


20th century

Holkham Studio Pottery was set up at Holkham Hall in 1951, making it the first stately home to produce pottery on-site to sell in the gift shop. At its peak, it employed 100 people and sold its distinctive pottery around the world. The company, which produced
earthenware Earthenware is glazed or unglazed nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below . Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water. However, earthenware can be made impervious to liquids by coating it with a ce ...
s, became Holkham Pottery Ltd in 1961 and closed in 2007.


Parish church of St Withburga

Holkham parish church is just south of the coast road, hidden in the trees of the Holkham Estate. It stands on a tall circular mound, which archaeologists suggest might be man-made and possibly pre-Saxon. Holkham parish church is dedicated to Saint Withburga. This dedication to a Saxon saint often implies a church has Saxon origins. Excavations at Holkham have found Saxon remains near the west end which may be a tower. Norman remains have been found incorporated into the present building which implies that the Normans expanded the Saxon building – as they did at other churches. In turn this Norman church made way for an Early English building (13th century). The tower and the western part of the south aisle date from this period. The church guidebook notes that the tower gets progressively younger as it goes up. The lower section is Early English up to the sill of the belfry windows. The belfry itself is Decorated (14th century) while the battlements and pinnacles are Perpendicular (15th to 16th century). During restoration work at least six 12th and 13th century coffin lids with foliated crosses were found on site and are now on show inside the church. The north aisle and north transept are thought to have been added later than the 13th century as burials and parts of coffin lids were found under the foundations. The church is known to have been enlarged in the 14th century and many of the internal arches are Decorated period. By the early 18th century the church had fallen into decay but the development of Holkham Estate by the Coke family led to renewed interest in the church. In 1767 the Countess Dowager of Leicester put up £1,000 for its repair. She had overseen the completion of Holkham Hall after the death of the 1st Earl in 1759. A major renovation of the church was completed in 1869 at the expense of Juliana, the wife of the 2nd Earl of Leicester. This cost £9,000. She died the following year and has a striking sculpted memorial in the north chapel of the church. The unusual
mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...
in the west wall of the churchyard was built for Juliana in the 1870s, but her body was transferred in 1905 to the Coke family plot on the south side of the churchyard. Inside the parish church there are several other memorials to various members of the Coke family of Holkham Hall. During the post medieval period, many Cokes were also buried in St. Mary's Church, Tittleshall.


Media

* All the Peenemünde sequences of the 1965 film '' Operation Crossbow'' featuring German attempts to make the V-1 fly were filmed at Holkham Gap. The mass grave sequence at Holkham was filmed using male extras recruited from nearby Wells-next-the-Sea and – as a result – the film used to show at the former Wells cinema for several weeks a year during the late 1960s. * Several parts of the 1976 film '' The Eagle Has Landed'', starring Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall, were filmed on Holkham Beach and in the pinewoods. * The final scenes of '' Shakespeare in Love'' (1998) were filmed on the beach. * The music video for "
Pure Shores "Pure Shores" is a song by English-Canadian girl group All Saints, released by London Records on 14 February 2000 as the lead single from '' The Beach: Motion Picture Soundtrack'' and the group's second studio album, '' Saints & Sinners'' (2000 ...
", by All Saints, for the 2000 film '' The Beach'', was filmed here. * A number of beach scenes for the ''
Avengers Avenger, Avengers, The Avenger, or The Avengers may refer to: Arts and entertainment In the Marvel Comics universe * Avengers (comics), a team of superheroes **Avengers (Marvel Cinematic Universe), a central team of protagonist superheroes of ...
'' episode "The Town of No Return" (1965) were filmed at Holkham Gap. * Parts of the ITV1 drama '' Kingdom'', featuring comedian Stephen Fry, were filmed on Wells and Holkham Beaches.Holkham Estate film location
*' The Duchess' starring Keira Knightley was filmed at Holkham Hall. * Scenes of ' Annihilation' starring Natalie Portman were filmed at Holkham Pines in July 2016.


See also

* List of closed railway stations in Britain: H-J


Notes


Bibliography

* * Available Google Books.


External links


Information from Genuki Norfolk
on Holkham.
The Holkham Estate websiteDiCamillo companion guide
– includes some good photos

roman-Britain.org
North Norfolk History
article in the North Norfolk News.

Viking.no site {{authority control Villages in Norfolk Populated coastal places in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk Beaches of Norfolk North Norfolk