Topcroft is a village and a

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 authority ...

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 No ...

. The village is around north-west of

Bungay Bungay () is a market town, civil parish and electoral ward in the English county of Suffolk.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . It lies in the Waveney Valley, west of Beccles on the edge of The Broads, and at the neck of a meand ...

and south 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 See of Norwich, with ...

in the

South Norfolk South Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Long Stratton. The population of the Local Authority District was 124,012 as taken at the 2011 Census. History The district was formed on 1 April 197 ...

district. The village lies close to the B1527 road. The villages name means 'Topi's small enclosed field'. The parish had a population of 265 at the 2011 census. A notable resident of Topcroft is the artist Hannah Giffard, creator of ''

Pablo the Little Red Fox ''Pablo the Little Red Fox'' is a British-French pre-school children's animated series which originally ran from 28 September 1999 to 2000 on BBC One and BBC Two (part of CBBC). The hero is a little red fox called Pablo and his siblings called ...

'', an animated television series for children.

History

Topcroft has an entry 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 manusc ...

of 1085. In the great book Topcroft is recorded by the name ''Topercroft'' and ''Topercropt'' and was part of the holdings of Eudo FitzSpirwic, Berenger from Saint Edmund's. The population peaked in the 1851 census at 477 people, falling to a low of 257 in 1931 and staying stable at this level since then. During

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 opposin ...

RAF Hardwick Royal Air Force Hardwick or more simply RAF Hardwick is a former Royal Air Force station located between the Norfolk villages of Topcroft and Hardwick in England. It is around west of Bungay, Suffolk. History Hardwick Airfield was one of t ...

was built just to the south-west of the parish boundary. The airfield was operated by Bombardment groups of the US

Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Force ...

during the war and closed in 1945.

The church of Saint Margaret

The parish church is dedicated to Saint Margaret. It is one of 124 existing

round-tower church Round-tower churches are a type of church found mainly in England, mostly in East Anglia; of about 185 surviving examples in the country, 124 are in Norfolk, 38 in Suffolk, six in Essex, three in Sussex and two each in Cambridgeshire and Berkshi ...

es in

Culture and community

Topcroft Cricket Club is based in the village with the First XI playing in the Norfolk Cricket Alliance Division Two.

References

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