Wednesday, 4^th June                  HINGHAM – ALL AROUND NORFOLK! FAMILY HISTORY DAY

Today was an epic trip, consisting of driving the highways and byways of East Anglia/Norfolk investigating the family ancestral towns of my Nanna, Annie Adelaide Moore (later Thompson). Nanna’s grandfather Isaac Moore was the first of the family to emigrate to Australia (though one of his uncles had done so previously in a purely non-voluntary manner at Her Majesty’s insistence!) I’ll write a more in-depth family history post some time in the future for the other family historians, but these are our adventures today.

We woke to lovely sunshine (although it was extremely brisk outside with temperatures in single digits) had our breakfast, and planned an itinerary for the day. We got away about nine o’clock on our way to our first destination, Reymerston. This is where Isaac’s grandfather, Abraham Moore married his third wife, and is buried. It was a bit of an adventure finding the church, though, as Google actually got it quite badly wrong, and was about 400m out. The church was hidden behind a leafy avenue of woodland, but we finally found it with the help of some locals. Lots of flint in its construction (as with all of the churches we saw today). Unfortunately, it was locked, as can be very common these days. No sign of Abraham’s grave, but the vast majority of the gravestones are illegible anyway.

                                                         Reymerston church

Next stop, through tiny lanes with towering hedgerows, was the pretty little town of Lyng, where my 4 X great-grandparents Thomas and Elizabeth Speakman lived and are buried. (They were the ones married in Wootton Wawen). Their descendants stayed in the district, but I’m afraid their numbers were thinned by WW1 – no fewer than 6 Speakmans were killed in the war. It must have been horrendous for the village to lose multiple members of families like that.

                                                                     Church in Lyng

                                          Such a small district lost so many young men

Our next destination was Swanton Morley, which covers quite a large area, but amazingly doesn’t seem to have a café or anywhere to eat! We did find public toilets in the town hall, at least. The church is beautiful, large and very well looked after. Isaac’s father, John Moore and his wife Mary Anne were married, raised a family and are buried here. It’s a very pretty, lovely looking village now, but in July of 1832, the poor things buried three children in three days, most likely due to a Cholera outbreak. Swanton Morley’s main claim to fame is that Abraham Lincoln’s ancestors emigrated from here to America in the 1600s.

                                                   Poppies growing wild near the church steps

                                           All Saints Church is high on a hill with lovely views

By now it was nearly midday, and we were quite hungry, so we needed to find somewhere to eat. The next village on our list was Gressenhall, where Abraham Moore worked as a blacksmith and lived for a time (he seemed to move from place to place a lot with his work.) Gressenhall was the location of the district’s workhouse (built in 1777) and farm, and it’s now been made into a museum, which has that marvellous institution, a café! We had a lovely meal there and a much-needed pot of tea for two. It does occur to me that it’s very likely Abraham would have worked there, as they would have needed blacksmiths, but I expect it was nowhere as happy or welcoming in those days. Today there were school groups of chattering children exploring, so I felt right at home.

                                               Gressenhall Workhouse, built in 1777

                                  The catering has improved - Lex enjoyed his ploughman's lunch!

                                      Beautiful gardens, and a 150 year old Copper Beech

                                                  St Mary's Church at Gressenhall

From there, we found the Gressenhall church, and explored it before heading on.

Our next stop was Shipdham, another place Abraham lived and worked. Again, a lovely little village. The church is very unusual, with a metal (copper?) structure on top instead of a spire. There was a lovely group of ladies having a cleaning bee (there was a definite air of the British equivalent of Mr Sheen!) and one of them was on for a chat, and told us lots of interesting things about it. All of these churches are Norman, and date back to the 1100s mostly. It’s a massive job looking after them.

                                             The sign says:  1517 Drynk kings of Church Ale

                                                  All Saints Church, Shipdham

Onwards to Shropham, where Tamazin Nourse, my 5 X Great-grandmother was born in 1742. Unfortunately, the church was locked. So on to Snetterton, where Abraham was born. Again, the church isn’t used, so it is locked and looks quite unloved and very overgrown. If we’d have been in Australia I would have been very worried about snakes!

Shropham

Snetterton

Our final stop for the day, just after 3, was Larling. This is now bisected by a major highway, so getting there was a bit convoluted. We saw The Angel, a pub that’s been there since the 1600s, then went over the highway and up a very long lane (pausing to wait for a tractor driver, which I filmed for Danny, the tractor fan!) and we finally found St Ethelbert’s, which happily was open. It is probably the oldest of all the churches we saw today – because the name is Saxon, it’s thought that it predates the Normans. It also doesn’t have electricity! There are hanging lamps and a big wood fired heater installed that must be very popular in winter. The tractor driver pulled up for a chat, and it turns out that he’s the local farm owner and a churchwarden. He showed me where some Barker family graves are located, so I’m going to try and decipher them tonight. Robert Barker, born 1735, my 5 X Great-grandfather, lived all his life in Larling and so did many descendants. The wind was coming straight off the North Pole by that stage, so we made our escape and headed for home, back by 4 for a cuppa.

The Angel, built in 1631

St Ethelbert's, Larling

Barker graves (yet to be deciphered)

Since then, Lex has been for a walk to the shop, and I’ve been sorting photos and getting my head around the day’s history. Tea (chicken pasta) is on and cooking slowly. There is a ridiculous little mini oven here with two hotplates, which only have two settings: on (not very hot) and off. I really don’t know how we are going to cook the pasta! Lex is currently reading up on cooking pasta in the microwave. Anyway, it’s nice to be in self-catering, as it really does save so much money (even though it looks as though we won’t be eating until about 9 at this rate….)

Tomorrow we are off to see what the coast of Norfolk is like!