Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for THETFORD

THETFORD, a town, three parishes, a sub-district, and a district, partly in Suffolk, but all registrationally in Norfolk. The town stands on the Eastern Counties railway, at the confluence of the rivers Thet and Little Ouse, 7¼ miles ESE of Brandon; is supposed to occupy the site of a Roman station; was known to the Saxons as Theodford; had a residence of the East Anglian kings; was the meeting-place of a synod in 672; suffered severely from the Danes in 870, 1004, and 1010; was made a mint town by Athelstan; was given, by William the Conqueror, to the Bigods; passed from them to the Warrenes, and to John of Gaunt; was the seat of a bishopric from 1070 till 1096; had 720 burgesses at Domesday; acquired a Cluniac priory from the Bigods, and a baronial fortalice from John of Gaunt; had 20 churches, 8 monasteries, and 6 hospitals in the time of Edward III.; retains numerous ruins and vestiges of these structures; has, at its eastern extremity, a mound 984 feet in circuit at the base, 255 feet in circuit at the top, and 100 feet high, supposed to have been a Roman or a Saxon fortification; numbers, among its natives, the local historian Martin and the infidel Payne; was a seat of assizes till 1833; is now a seat of quarter sessions, petty sessions, county courts, and a polling place; was made a borough by Queen Elizabeth; sent two members to parliament from her time till 1867; was half-disfranchised by the reform act of 1867, and wholly disfranchised by the act of 1868; consists, as a borough, of the three T. parishes; is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen, and 12 councillors, with a corporation income of about £1,164; presents an irregularly-built and widely-spread appearance; and has a head post-office,‡ a r. station with telegraph, two banking offices, a hotel, a guildhall, an iron bridge, a police station, three churches, five dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, an ultra-mural cemetery, a mechanics' institute, an endowed grammar-school with £509 a year, national and British schools, a workhouse, alms houses, an apprenticing charity £308, and other charities £192. John of Gaunt's fortalice was rebuilt by Queen Elizabeth, became a hunting-seat of James I., was given by him to Sir P. Wodehouse, is now the residence ofH. Fison, Esq., and bears the name of King's House. St. Mary's church was repaired in 1866; St. Peter's was partly rebuilt in 1789; St. Cuthbert's was recently restored. A weekly market is held on Saturday; fairs are held on 14 May and 2 and 16 Aug.; considerable commerce is carried on by barges; and numerous hands are employed in coach-building, agricultural-implement-making, iron-founding, malting, brewing, tanning, paper-making, rope-making, and the manufacture of chemicals. Acres, 6,460. Real property, £12,856; of which £162 are in gasworks. Pop. in 1851, 4,075; in 1861, 4,208. Houses, 900.

The three parishes are St. Peter, wholly in Norfolk, and St. Mary and St. Cuthbert, partly also in Suffolk. The living of St. P. is a rectory, and the livings of St. M. and St.are vicarages, in the diocese of Norwich. Value of St. M., £83; of St. P., £122; of St. C., £63. Patron of St. M., the Rev. A. F. Smith; of St. P., W. P. Snell, Esq.; of St. C., J. Shackleton, Esq.—The sub-district contains 23 parishes. Acres, 49,177. Pop., 9,843. Houses, 2,070.—The district includes Methwold sub-district, and comprises 117,870 acres. Poor rates in 1863, £8,312. Pop. in 1851, 19,040; in 1861, 18,712. Houses, 4,048. Marriages in 1863, 122; births, 577,- of which 64 were illegitimate; deaths, 407,-of which 146 were at ages under 5 years, and 18 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 1,300; births, 6,044; deaths, 3,826. The places of worship, in 1851, were 33 of the Church of England, with 6,330 sittings; 2 of Independents, with 550 s.; 12 of Wesleyans, with 2,515 s.; 8 of Primitive Methodists, with 1,066 s.; 1 of Roman Catholics, with 104 s.; and 1 of Latter Day Saints, with 70 s. The schools were 26 public day-schools, with 1,653 scholars; 41 private day-schools, with 814 s.; 39 Sunday-schools, with 3,071 s.; and 1 evening school for adults, with 17 s.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, three parishes, a sub-district, and a district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Thetford CP       Thetford SubD       Thetford RegD/PLU       Norfolk AncC       Suffolk AncC
Place names: THEODFORD     |     THETFORD
Place: Thetford

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