Gillingham ( ) is a small village located just off the A146 in South Norfolk, about 1 mile north of the market town of

Beccles Beccles ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the English county of Suffolk.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . The town is shown on the milestone as from London via the A145 and A12 roads, north-east of London as the crow fl ...

. The full name of the parish is Gillingham All Saints and St Mary. It covers an area of and had a population of 650 in 294 households at the time of the 2001 census, increasing to 676 at the 2011 census. The villages name means 'Homestead/village of Gylla's/Gythla's people'.

Parish

The parish is in the deanery of Loddon, in the

archdeaconry of Norfolk The Archdeacon of Norfolk is a senior ecclesiastical officer in the Church of England Diocese of Norwich, who exercises supervision of clergy and responsibility for church buildings within the geographical area of their archdeaconry. The current a ...

, the parish church is dedicated to St Mary with the church of All Saints being demolished in the 18th century. Gillingham is mentioned 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 ...

as one of the settlements in

Clavering hundred Clavering hundred was a hundred – or geographical subdivision – comprising parishes and settlements in Essex and Norfolk. Hundreds were divisions of areas of land within shires or counties for administrative and judicial purposes – and for t ...

. There is an electoral roll of 584 and located within the village is Gillingham First School, Gillingham Pre-School, a playground, allotments, two churches and a village hall.

Governance

An electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward stretches north to Heckingham with a total population taken at the 2011 census of 2,871.

Transport

The village currently has a regular bus service to much of the surrounding area.

First Norfolk & Suffolk First Eastern Counties is a bus operator providing services in Norfolk and Suffolk in eastern England. It is a subsidiary of FirstGroup. It has seven depots which are part of five operating areas spread out across East Anglia. The five operat ...

run the X2 through the village, which gives access to

, Loddon,

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 Lowestoft as well as the smaller surrounding villages and BorderBus run the 580 to

, Bungay, Harleston and Diss and the connecting 581 to

and Great Yarmouth and the 146 which runs between Norwich and Lowestoft via Loddon and Beccles. Bus services to other areas can be found in Beccles.

Education

There is a primary school in the village, Gillingham St Michael's Church of England Primary Academy. For secondary education most children from the village go to

Hobart High School Hobart High School is a coeducational secondary school with academy status, situated in the village of Loddon, near Norwich in Norfolk, England. It typically has around 850 pupils. The school previously had specialist science college status ...

in Loddon or

Sir John Leman High School Sir John Leman High School is a coeducational 11–18 secondary school with academy status serving part of the Waveney region in north Suffolk, England. The school is located on the western edge of the town of Beccles and serves the surroundin ...

Notable events

On 13 March 2014, a helicopter crashed shortly after take-off from

Gillingham Hall Gillingham Hall is a Jacobean manor house in the village of Gillingham, Norfolk, England. It is a Grade II* Listed Building. The house has 10-bedrooms and was built in the early 16th century. It was altered and enlarged in the 18th and 19th cent ...

, killing all four people on board, including

Edward Haughey, Baron Ballyedmond Edward Enda Haughey, Baron Ballyedmond, OBE, FRCVS, (5 January 1944 – 13 March 2014) was an Irish-British entrepreneur and politician. With an estimated personal wealth of €780 million (£650 million/USD$1,078 million), he was the second-ric ...

, the owner of

Notes

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

External links

S Norfolk Council
{{authority control Villages in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk