Thetford is a

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

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

Breckland District Breckland is a local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Dereham. The district had a population of 130,491 at the 2011 Census. The district derives its name from the Breckland landscape region, a gorse-covered sandy ...

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 ...

, England. It is on the A11 road between

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

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, just east of

Thetford Forest Thetford Forest is the largest lowland pine forest in Britain and is located in a region straddling the north of Suffolk and the south of Norfolk in England. It covers over in the form of a Site of Special Scientific Interest. History The ...

. The civil parish, covering an area of , in 2015 had a population of 24,340./ There has been a settlement at Thetford since the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

, and parts of the town predate the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Con ...

;

Thetford Castle Thetford Castle is a medieval motte and bailey castle in the market town of Thetford in the Breckland area of Norfolk, England. The first castle in Thetford, a probable 11th-century Norman ringwork called Red Castle, was replaced in the 12th ce ...

was established shortly thereafter. Roger Bigod founded the

Cluniac The Cluniac Reforms (also called the Benedictine Reform) were a series of changes within medieval monasticism of the Western Church focused on restoring the traditional monastic life, encouraging art, and caring for the poor. The movement began wi ...

Priory of St Mary in 1104, which became the largest and most important religious institution in Thetford. The town was badly hit by the Dissolution of the Monasteries, including the castle's destruction, but was rebuilt in 1574 when

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is ...

established a town charter. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Thetford became an " overspill town", taking people from London, as a result of which its population increased substantially.

Thetford railway station Thetford railway station is on the Breckland line in the east of England, serving the town of Thetford, Norfolk. The line runs between in the west and in the east. Thetford is situated between and , from London Liverpool Street via . The st ...

is served by the

Breckland line The Breckland line is a secondary railway line in the east of England that links in the west to in the east. The line runs through three counties: Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk. It takes its name from the Breckland region of Norfolk, ...

and is one of the best surviving pieces of 19th-century railway architecture in East Anglia.

Name

The origin of the name Thetford is unclear. The site was an important crossing of the

River Little Ouse The River Little Ouse is a river in the east of England, a tributary of the River Great Ouse. For much of its length it defines the boundary between Norfolk and Suffolk. It rises east of Thelnetham, close to the source of the River Waveney, ...

, so one possibility is that the settlement drew its name from the Anglo-Saxon ''Theod''ford or ''people's''

ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

. It is also unclear if the nearby

River Thet The River Thet is a river in Norfolk, England and is a tributary of the River Little Ouse.It rises in Breckland with sources in Deopham Green and Rockland All Saints and joins the Little Ouse in Thetford after flowing approximately southwest. ...

is named after the crossing or the later settlement.

History

Early history

Breckland was used as an excavation site for flint tools around 2000BC. During the

, a fort was established on

Icknield Way The Icknield Way is an ancient trackway in southern and eastern England that runs from Norfolk to Wiltshire. It follows the chalk escarpment that includes the Berkshire Downs and Chiltern Hills. Background It is generally said to be, wi ...

at the site of Thetford Castle. Thetford was an important tribal centre for the

Iceni The Iceni ( , ) or Eceni were a Brittonic tribe of eastern Britain during the Iron Age and early Roman era. Their territory included present-day Norfolk and parts of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and bordered the area of the Corieltauvi to the we ...

during the late Iron Age and early Roman period, with Castle Hill and Gallows Hill being sites of particular note. During the Saxon period it was the principal centre of the eastern Heptarchy and a regular battle site between locals and the Viking invaders. A mint was built in Thetford in the 9th century. A

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whi ...

was established around 1020 and a

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

was operating since before the

of 1066. The town greatly prospered during the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–1066), and at one point there were 944 free Burgesses living in Thetford. 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 ...

of 1086 estimated the population of Thetford to have grown to between 4000 and 4500 people, which would have been the sixth largest town in Britain at the time. The Book lists William of Bello Fargo as the Bishop of Thetford at the time. The bishopric had moved here from

North Elmham North Elmham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It covers an area of and had a population of 1,428 in 624 households at the 2001 census, including Gateley and increasing slightly to 1,433 at the 2011 Census. For ...

in 1071 and stayed in Thetford until moving to

in 1096.

In 1067–1069,

was built on the ruins of an Iron Age fort at Castle Hill. It is believed to have been constructed either by Ralph Guader, Earl of East Anglia, or Roger Bigod, his successor as Earl, who is known to have ordered Bungay and

Framlingham Framlingham is a market town and civil parish in Suffolk, England. Of Anglo-Saxon origin, it appears in the 1086 Domesday Book. The parish had a population of 3,342 at the 2011 Census and an estimated 4,016 in 2019. Nearby villages include Ea ...

castles to have been built in Suffolk. In 1104, Bigod founded the

Priory of St Mary. The priory grew rapidly, with an influx of monks from Lewes, and in 1107 it was moved to a larger site on the other side of the river where the ruins remain today. It became the largest and most important religious institution in Thetford. The Norfolk Lent Assizes were held at Thetford from 1264 because there was only one Assize for both Norfolk and Suffolk. Thetford, being close to the border between the two, was convenient for both. However, after much pressure, an Act of Parliament was passed in 1832 to transfer them to Norwich. In 1373, John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, was responsible for altering the administrative makeup of the town, promoting the Mayor to its most important official, subjecting the bailiff and the coroner to report to him. Thetford had its own coroner, courts and legal officials, without depending on those for the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.

Tudor history to present

Henry VIII sent

Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and of her execution by beheading for treason and other charges made her a key ...

's father,

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

, as part of a Commission to assess Thetford in 1527. The Commission concluded that the town had fallen into "great ruin and decay" and that the burgesses of the town had squandered rents and dues which belonged to the King. Thetford was struck hard by the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s and 1540s. A formal complaint was raised by the Mayors and burgesses to Thomas Cromwell in 1539, arguing that many of the town's inhabitants would fall into extreme poverty because their livelihoods depended on pilgrims visiting Thetford.

Thetford Priory Thetford Priory is a Cluniac monastic house in Thetford, Norfolk, England. Founded in 1103 by Roger Bigod of Norfolk, Thetford was one of the most important monasteries of East Anglia. It should not be confused with the Dominican Friary of Blac ...

was closed down in 1540 and fell into the possession of

Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, (1473 – 25 August 1554) was a prominent English politician and nobleman of the Tudor era. He was an uncle of two of the wives of King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, both of whom were beheade ...

. In 1574,

granted a Charter of Incorporation to the town, setting up a governing body of a Mayor, ten burgesses and twenty commoners to meet in the Guildhall and redevelop the town main streets, houses and shops. Elizabeth arrived in Thetford on 27 August 1578 to survey developments, holding a Privy Council meeting at Sir Edward Clere's Place House, now Nunnery Place. A lot of material from the decaying priory and religious buildings in the town were used to save building costs in the building of King's House and other buildings in Thetford. In 1819 there was a local desire to develop Thetford into a spa town modelled on Bath, Cheltenham and

Harrogate Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa w ...

. A pump room was built over the spring at Nuns Bridges and the Thetford Mineral Spring Company was established. The mayor financed a new gravel path along the bank of the Little Ouse, which was named Spring Walk. The plan did not succeed; by 1838 the pump room was closed. In 1835 the old Corporation of Thetford was abolished, and a new one set up a Mayor, four aldermen and twelve councillors. The town was represented by two MPs until 1868 when it lost a seat to Scotland. Dr Allan Glaisyer Minns, born in

Inagua Inagua is the southernmost district of the Bahamas, comprising the islands of Great Inagua and Little Inagua. The headquarters for the district council are in Matthew Town. History The original settlers were the Lucayan people, who arrived som ...

, the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...

, Mayor of Thetford in 1904, was the first black man to become a mayor in Britain. In 1912, more than 30,000 troops participated in military manoeuvres on the heath land outside the town. Over 700 men from the town fought in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

; a memorial was erected in 1921 with the names of over 100 men who died during the war. Locally in the wooded and sand like areas, the trial tests of the first tank took place in total secrecy in early 1915. At the end of

, Thetford still only had a population of around 5000 people. In the 1950s, the borough council drew up a plan with the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

to relocate Londoners and several businesses to Thetford and double the population. By the late 1980s the population of Thetford had reached around 21,000 people. This meant that Thetford grew faster than any other town in Norfolk.

Geography

Thetford is situated in the south of Norfolk, in close proximity to the county border with Suffolk. By road it is northeast of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

and southwest of Norwich. It lies on the

. On the western side of Thetford is

, which is heavily forested with pine trees. Brettenham Heath National Nature Reserve is to the northeast, near the hamlet of Roudham. To the southeast of Thetford is Nunnery Lakes Nature Reserve, covering about 200 acres, with breckland heath, woodland, fen and open water habitats and of paths.

Economy and services

The Thetford Borough Police Force was established in 1836, and in 1857 the small force joined Norfolk County Constabulary. Thetford Fire Brigade was established in 1880. The Thetford Gas Company, founded in 1838, proved very short-lived until Thetford Gasworks opened on Bury Road in 1845. In 1848, gas street lighting was set up in Thetford. From 1877 the town was provided with a clean water supply thanks to a new reservoir and steam engine on Gallows Hill to pump fresh water into the town. In 1929 the Anglian Electricity Supply Company began supplying electricity to the town, which was completed in 1933. Thetford was the headquarters of Tulip International, large-scale manufacturers of bacon, beef and

pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved; ...

. In March 2007 the factory laid off three quarters of their workforce in Thetford with the loss of 350 jobs, and the factory later closed in 2010. In January 2018 it was announced that a new retail park and restaurant had been approved on the factory site with over of retail floor space. The development was initiated by Stapleford Thetford Ltd. as part of the Thetford-Cambridge-Norwich Technology Corridor. The market is held outside Thetford Guildhall in the town centre on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Landmarks

Thetford contains the ruins of

and

, which was closed during the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

. The Grade II listed timber-framed Bell Inn in the town was first mentioned in 1493 and was used as a coaching inn on the Norwich-London road until 1845 when it became connected by railway. The

Black Horse Black is a hair coat color of horses in which the entire hair coat is black. Black is a relatively uncommon coat color, and it is not uncommon to mistake dark chestnuts or bays for black. True black horses have dark brown eyes, black skin, an ...

public house dates from the mid 18th century, and is grade II listed. Thetford Warren Lodge was built in around 1400 by the Prior of Thetford to protect gamekeepers and hunters against poachers, and was later used to harvest rabbits. The Charles Burrell Museum opened in 1991 in the former Paint Shop of

Charles Burrell & Sons Charles Burrell & Sons were builders of steam traction engines, agricultural machinery, steam lorries and steam tram engines. The company were based in Thetford, Norfolk and operated from the St Nicholas works on Minstergate and St Nicholas St ...

on Minstergate in Thetford. The museum is dedicated to steam power and steam transport. The Ancient House Museum is situated in an oak-framed Tudor merchant's house on White Hart Street. It contains replicas of the Thetford Hoard and has numerous displays about flinting, rabbit warrens and wildlife. The Thetford Academy, Norfolk was established through the merger of Charles Burrell Humanities School and Rosemary Musker High School in September 2010.

Culture

The external scenes for the

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

TV series ''

Dad's Army ''Dad's Army'' is a British television sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, and originally broadcast on BBC1 from 31 July 1968 to 13 November 1977. It ran fo ...

'' were filmed in and around the town, with Thetford's

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

buildings doubling for Walmington-on-Sea. The Dad's Army Museum is housed in part of Thetford Guildhall.

Sport

The local football club, Thetford Town F.C., plays in the

Eastern Counties Football League The Eastern Counties Football League, currently known as the Thurlow Nunn League for sponsorship purposes, is an English football league at levels 9 and 10 of the English football league system. It currently contains clubs from Norfolk, Suffolk ...

. Thetford Rugby Union Football Club is based on the Mundford Road just outside Thetford, with its first team playing in the Eastern Counties London 3. Thetford Town Cricket Club have two adult teams competing in the Norfolk Cricket Alliance and one in the Norfolk Friendly Alliance. The club also boasts a thriving junior section. A swimming team called the Thetford Dolphins is based at Breckland Leisure Centre's Waterworld swimming pools. World champion triathlete Chrissie Wellington is a former member of this swimming club. Thetford Golf Club, to the northwest of the town in Thetford Forest Park, was established in 1912 with a course originally designed by Charles H. Mayo, with later alterations by James Braid and Philip Mackenzie Ross. The construction of the second Thetford bypass resulted in five of the course holes being lost and having to be re-fashioned by Cameron Sinclair and Donald Steel.

Transport

sits on the

between and Norwich, and opened in 1845. The station building was designed in a

Neo-Jacobean The Jacobethan or Jacobean Revival architectural style is the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the English Renaissance (15 ...

style and constructed using local Breckland flint, and extended in 1889. It has one of the best preserved set of railway buildings in East Anglia, retaining nine separate buildings that have survived from the nineteenth century, and has been grade II listed since 1971. The

Thetford to Bury St Edmunds line The Thetford to Bury St Edmunds line is a closed railway between Thetford in Norfolk and Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, England. It was a single line railway of . History Opening The line was built and opened by the Bury St Edmunds and Thetford R ...

opened on 1 March 1876, and included a second station in the town, . The line closed to passengers in 1953 and goods in 1960. The town sits on the historic turnpike road between London and Norwich, which later became the A11. The first bypass opened in 1968, followed by a second in 1987. A high speed dual carriageway link from Thetford towards London opened in December 2014, which removed the remaining of single carriageway via

Elveden Elveden is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. In 2005 it had a population of 270. The village is bypassed by the A11 between Cambridge and Norwich, which ran through the centre of the villa ...

. The other main roads through the town are the A134 from

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colch ...

to King's Lynn, and the A1066 towards Diss. The National Cycle Route 13 links Thetford to Gateley, near

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 ...

Notable people

Statue of Thomas Paine, Thetford, Norfolk

* Theodosia Ann Dean (1819-1843), missionary; was born in the town * Allan Glaisyer Minns (1858-1930), Doctor and the first black man to become a mayor in Britain, was mayor of Thetford *

Allan Noel Minns Allan Noel Minns, DSO, MC, (23 March 1891 – 6 April 1921) was an English medical doctor of African-Caribbean descent who served as an officer in the British Army during the First World War. He was born in Thetford, Norfolk in 1891, the son of ...

(1891-1921), latter's son, Doctor and one of first British Army officers of Afro-Caribbean descent to serve in World War I; buried in Thetford Cemetery. *

Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...

(1737-1809), political radical, involved in both the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

and the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, was born in the town. *

Duleep Singh Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh, GCSI (4 September 1838 – 22 October 1893), or Sir Dalip Singh, and later in life nicknamed the "Black Prince of Perthshire", was the last ''Maharaja'' of the Sikh Empire. He was Maharaja Ranjit Singh's youngest son, ...

(1838-1893), last Maharajah of the Punjab, lived part of his exile at nearby Elveden. An equestrian statue of the Maharaja was unveiled in 1999 at Butten Island in the town, which benefited from his and his sons' generosity.Royal tribute to first Sikh settler
''

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

'', 29 July 1999.

Twin towns

Thetford is twinned with the towns of: *

Hürth Hürth is a town in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Hürth shares borders with the city of Cologne and is about 6 km to the southwest of Cologne city centre, at the northeastern slope of the natural preserve Kott ...

, near Cologne, Germany *

Skawina Skawina is a town in southern Poland with 27,328 inhabitants (2008). Situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship (since 1999), previously in Kraków Voivodeship (1975–1998). The town is located on the Skawinka river, in close proximity to the c ...

, near Kraków, Poland *

Nissewaard Nissewaard () is a municipality in the Netherlands, located on the island of Voorne-Putten, in the south of the province of South Holland. It was created through a merger of the municipalities of Spijkenisse and Bernisse on 1 January 2015. Nissewa ...

, near Rotterdam, Netherlands *

Les Ulis Les Ulis () is a commune in the Essonne department located in the southwestern suburbs (banlieue) of Paris, France. It is from the centre of Paris. Location Les Ulis is a new town located in the Île-de-France, in the south-west of the P ...

, near Paris, France

Freedom of the Town

The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the Town of Thetford.

Individuals

* William Ellis Clarke : 1973. * David Osborne: 14 September 2019. Town Historian

Military Units

RAF Honington Royal Air Force Honington or more simply RAF Honington is a Royal Air Force station located south of Thetford near Ixworth in Suffolk, England. Although used as a bomber station during the Second World War, RAF Honington is now the RAF Regim ...

on 9 June 2019.

References

Citations Sources * * *

External links

Information from Genuki Norfolk
on Thetford.
History of Thetford by age
{{authority control Breckland District Market towns in Norfolk Towns in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk