Oxborough 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 ...

, well known for its church and manor house

Oxburgh Hall Oxburgh Hall is a moated country house in Oxborough, Norfolk, England. The hall was built for Sir Edmund Bedingfeld who obtained a licence to crenellate in 1482. The Bedingfelds gained the manor of Oxborough through marriage in the early 15th ...

. It covers an area of and had a population of 240 in 106 households in the 2001 census, reducing to a population of 228 in 111 households at the 2011 Census. For the purposes of local government, it falls within the

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...

of Breckland. The villages name means 'Ox fortification’. The Oxborough dirk, a Bronze Age ceremonial oversize dagger was discovered nearby in 1988. It was acquired for the nation and is now on display in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

Churches

St John's Church, in the centre of the village, is partially ruined. Its Bedingfeld Chapel of 1496 contains two rare

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

tombs, unique in England, which commemorate members of the Bedingfeld family of Oxburgh Hall. In 1948, the tower and spire of the church collapsed onto the church below in high winds, destroying the south side of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

. The surviving chancel and Bedingfeld chapel were subsequently repaired to become the main church buildings, leaving the destroyed nave as a grassed area. At the Reformation, the Bedingfeld family retained their Roman Catholic faith as

recusants Recusancy (from la, recusare, translation=to refuse) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation. The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign ...

; the Hall contains a

priest hole A priest hole is a hiding place for a priest built into many of the principal Catholic houses of England, Wales and Ireland during the period when Catholics were persecuted by law. When Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558, there were se ...

. Following the

Catholic emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

, a new Roman Catholic chapel dedicated to St Margaret and Our Lady, was built in the grounds of Oxburgh Hall. It contains a large

triptych A triptych ( ; from the Greek adjective ''τρίπτυχον'' "''triptukhon''" ("three-fold"), from ''tri'', i.e., "three" and ''ptysso'', i.e., "to fold" or ''ptyx'', i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided ...

altarpiece constructed of 16th-century panels from Antwerp. Remains of an earlier

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

church, St. Mary Magdalene, also survive within the grounds of the Old Rectory at Oxborough Hythe, a hamlet south west of the main village. File:OxboroughChurchRuinedNave(JohnSalmon)Oct2004.jpg, The ruined nave File:OxboroughChurchEastEnd(JohnSalmon)Oct2004.jpg, The east end File:OxboroughChurchNorthWall(JohnSalmon)Oct2004.jpg, The north wall File:OxburghHall.jpg, Oxburgh Hall File:Oxburgh Hall (4458440664).jpg, Roman Catholic chapel of St Margaret and Our Lady File:Oxborough Hythe, ruin of the church of St. Mary Magdalene (geograph 4353781).jpg, Ruin of the church of St Mary Magdalene, Oxborough Hythe

Oxburgh Hall

Oxburgh Hall is the ancient ancestral home of the Bedingfeld family, and is now owned by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

References

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

External links

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