New Buckenham 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 The counties of England are areas used for different purposes, which include administrative, geographical, cultural and political demarcation. The term "county" is defined in several ways and can apply to similar or the same areas used by each ...

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 Nor ...

. The parish covers an area of and had a population of 468 in 197 households at the 2001 census, falling marginally to a population of 460 in 209 households at the 2011 census. The small parish includes only the village, New Buckenham Common and some outlying houses and farmland. It is in the

local government district The districts of England (also known as local authority districts or local government districts to distinguish from unofficial city districts) are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the st ...

Breckland 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 la ...

. A

nucleated village A nucleated village, or clustered settlement, is one of the main types of settlement pattern. It is one of the terms used by geographers and landscape historians to classify settlements. It is most accurate with regard to planned settlements: its c ...

, New Buckenham has a medieval

grid plan In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogon ...

encompassing a

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...

that originally served as the

market place A marketplace or market place is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a ''souk'' (from the Arabic), '' ...

. At the green there is a historic market house, a grade II-star listed building which features a whipping post, and commonly called the Market Cross. The village entirely comprises a

conservation area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

together with the adjacent

Buckenham Castle Old Buckenham Castle and Buckenham Castle are two castles adjacent respectively to the villages of Old Buckenham and New Buckenham, Norfolk, England. Old Buckenham Castle All that remains today of what was a Norman castle are the remnants of th ...

, which lies in the neighbouring parish of

Old Buckenham Old Buckenham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk, approximately south-west of Norwich. It covers an area of and had a population of 1,294 in 658 households at the 2001 census falling to a population of 1,270 livin ...

Geography

The B1113 road passes through the village, diagonally over the green, and then across the Common. This road runs to the city 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 Episcopal see, See of ...

, distant to the north east. The nearest towns are

Attleborough Attleborough is a market town and civil parish located on the A11 between Norwich and Thetford in Norfolk, England. The parish is in the district of Breckland and has an area of . The 2001 Census recorded the town as having a population of ...

and Diss, where there are mainline railway stations. In general, the land slopes slightly downhill towards the south and the centre of the village lies at an elevation of around above sea level. A small watercourse (or "beck" in Norfolk dialect) runs across the Common and then along the southern edge of the village. The parish borders the parishes of Banham, Old Buckenham and

Carleton Rode Carleton Rode is a village and civil parish in Norfolk, England. It is situated approximately five miles south-east of Attleborough. In the 2011 Census, Carleton Rode was recorded as having a population of 785 people in 324 households. History ...

. The nearby hamlet of Dam Brigg lies in the parish of Banham.

History

A planned town

New Buckenham was founded in the 12th century by William d’Aubigny to accompany his new castle in the manor of Buckenham. The site had a common to the east and a limited area of arable land (the Haugh field) to the south. The town was planned on a grid pattern and surrounded by a substantial wet

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

that connected to the castle's moat. In some places the moat was up to nine metres wide and three metres deep with an internal bank. It was referred to as the ‘burgh ditch’ in 1493 and the area within it was known as ‘ the burgage’. By 1600 the moat was no longer being maintained and was becoming clogged with rubbish. in 1632 Charles Gosling, the owner of the Rookery, was given leave to build a barn across it. New Buckenham remained a market centre and was joined to Norwich by a turnpike road in 1772. However, it never grew into a larger settlement, and by the mid-19th century markets were no longer held although a small number of annual

fair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Types Variations of fairs incl ...

s were. The population peaked in the first half of the 19th century, with 795 inhabitants recorded in the 1831 census. The village has largely retained its original layout for which, according to the '' Pevsner'' for Norfolk, ‘it deserves to be better known’, and there has been little development beyond its medieval boundaries. In ''Norfolk from the Air I'', New Buckenham is described as ‘a rare example of a Norman planned town that has not significantly expanded outside or shrunk within its original boundaries’. The original plan would have been altered by the foundation of the

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

between 1243 and the end of the thirteenth century. It was further modified by building over the southern part of the market place which had occurred by 1529: its original limit is marked by Boosey's Walk. Later expansions of the settlement have occurred at Marsh Lane in the south and St Martin's Gardens in the north. There remains a wealth of half-timbered housing hidden behind 18th and 19th century brick frontages, and forty buildings in the village are Grade II

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

. MAGIC mapping The green is a registered

common Common may refer to: Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts * Clapham Common, originally ...

and is still called the Market Place although no market or trading fair is now held in New Buckenham.

Victorian

New Buckenham Silver Band was created in 1887 to celebrate

Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee The Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated on 20 and 21 June 1887 to mark the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. It was celebrated with a Thanksgiving Service at Westminster Abbey, and a banquet to which ...

and continues as one of the older brass bands in East Anglia. One of the two current pubs in the village, historically the ''George Hotel'' but now named the ''Inn on the Green'', was built in 1898 as a railway hostelry in anticipation of the construction of a railway line that failed to materialise.

Community

Governance

There is a parish council that meets once a month. Since 2015, New Buckenham is in The Buckenhams & Banham ward of

district, which returns one councillor to the district council. Since 2010, the parish is part of the Parliamentary

constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

of Mid Norfolk. The green, Market Cross, church clock and Chapel Hill pump are maintained by a charitable trust called The High Bailiff's Trust. Historically the parish was part of the

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

of Shropham.

Amenities

As of 2019 the village has two

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

s (the ''Inn on the Green'' and ''The King's Head''), and on King Street there is a

convenience store A convenience store, convenience shop, corner store or corner shop is a small retail business that stocks a range of everyday items such as coffee, groceries, snack foods, confectionery, soft drinks, ice creams, tobacco products, lottery ti ...

, with a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional se ...

counter, and next door a

tearoom A teahouse (mainly Asia) or tearoom (also tea room) is an establishment which primarily serves tea and other light refreshments. A tea room may be a room set aside in a hotel especially for serving afternoon tea, or may be an establishment whic ...

. The Inn on the Green closed permanently in 2020 and planning permission has been granted for its conversion to residential. A modern

village hall A village hall is a public building in a village used for various things such as: United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, a village hall is usually a building which contains at least one large room (plus kitchen and toilets), is owned by a local ...

and playing field exists on the northern edge of the village, and a separate

cricket field A cricket field is a large grass field on which the game of cricket is played. Although generally oval in shape, there is a wide variety within this: some are almost perfect circles, some elongated ovals and some entirely irregular shapes with l ...

lies in a corner of the Common, home to the village club. New Buckenham's calendar includes a traditional fete held on the August Bank Holiday, and a community gathering called the "Hair of the Dog Walk" which takes place on

New Year's Day New Year's Day is a festival observed in most of the world on 1 January, the first day of the year in the modern Gregorian calendar. 1 January is also New Year's Day on the Julian calendar, but this is not the same day as the Gregorian one. Whi ...

Religion

The historic parish church, now a grade I listed building, is dedicated to Saint Martin and is

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 Brit ...

, coming under the diocese of Norwich. There were also Primitive and Wesleyan

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

churches in the village; the Primitive chapel was on Marsh Lane whilst the Wesleyan chapel was on Chapel Lane — both have been converted to houses. Until 2018 the school room adjacent to the Wesleyan chapel continued to be used by the Methodists but has now also been sold.

Notable residents

* Poet, children's author and hymn writer

Emily Taylor Emily Taylor (1795 – 11 March 1872) was an English schoolmistress, poet, children's author, and hymnist. She wrote numerous tales for children, chiefly historical, along with books of instruction and some descriptive natural history. Early ...

(1795–1872) was brought up in the village and ran a school there.ODNB. Information under Alexander Gordon, "Taylor, Edgar (1793–1839)", rev. Eric Metcalfe, ODNB, Oxford University Press, 200
Retrieved 16 September 2014. Pay-walled.
/ref> * Biblical scholar, writer, and minister

Joseph Bryant Rotherham Joseph Bryant Rotherham (1828–1910) was a British biblical scholar and minister of the Churches of Christ. He was a prolific writer whose best-known work was the Emphasized Bible, a new translation that used "emphatic inversion" and a set of di ...

(1828–1910) was born there.

Notes

External links

New Buckenham Parish Website
{{authority control Villages in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk Breckland District Populated places established in the 12th century Fortified settlements