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Is a highly cultivated district, finely interspersed with woods, streams, villages, churches, and many handsome seats. It is of a crooked spiral figure, about 16 miles in length, exclusive of a narrow strip at its northern extremity, terminating at West Beckham; and varying from 9 to less than 5 miles in breadth, extending to within 3 miles of the ocean. It is bounded on the south by Taverham, on the west by Eynesford and Holt, on the north by North Erpingham, and on the east by Tunstead Hundred. The river Bure flows through it, from Corpusty to Belaugh, receiving in its course many tributary streams, watering a fertile valley, which in some places is broken into bold and picturesque acclivities. In 1773, an act was obtained to make the Bure navigable from Coltishall up to Aylsham, a market town, nearly in the centre of this Hundred, which forms, in ecclesiastical matters, the Deanery of Ingworth, in the Archdeaconry of Norwich.
PETTY SESSIONS, for the whole Hundred, are held at the Black Boy, Aylsham, every Tuesday; and Mr. Fredk. Roe is clerk to the magistrates. The fee of it remained in the Crown till 1226, when Henry III. granted it to Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, at which time the Hundred Court was held at Cawston Park Gate.
It contains 38 parishes, of which the following is an enumeration, shewing their population in 1841, the annual value of their lands and buildings, as assessed to the County Rate in 1843, and their territorial extent, in assessable acres.
+==================================================+ | | | Annl. | | | PARISHES. | Pop. | Val. | Acres. | | | | £. | | +--------------------------------------------------+ | Alby 299 1448 715 | | Aylsham 2448 10,478 4102 | | Baconsthorpe 326 1638 1348 | | Banningham @ 329 1680 908 | | Barningham(Ltl.) 229 1196 1225 | | Beckham (West) 179 1034 723 | | Belaugh 164 1072 826 | | Blickling @ 356 2444 2081 | | Booton 241 1730 1011 | | Brampton * 263 990 482 | | Burgh St. Mary * 314 1562 789 | | Buxton * 713 2824 1204 | | Calthorpe 214 1656 1028 | | Cawston 1130 4248 3805 | | Colby @ 346 1870 1075 | | Coltishall 897 3412 1129 | | Corpusty 449 1340 927 | | Erpingham @ 475 2608 1348 | | Hautboys (Great) 162 936 589 | | Hevingham * 893 3400 2793 | | Heydon 321 1660 1717 | | Ingworth 152 956 496 | | Irmingland 13 840 704 | | Itteringham @ 351 1814 1442 | | Lammas-with- } 257} | | Ltl. Hautboys} 42} 1634 811 | | Mannington 20 590 548 | | Marsham * 698 2214 1384 | | Oulton @ 409 1898 1675 | | Oxnead * 56 1244 641 | | Saxthorpe 342 1952 2073 | | Scottow 539 3504 2068 | | Skeyton * 351 2018 1227 | | Stratton-Straw-} | | less * } 277 1636 1217 | | Swanton-Abbot * 501 1700 946 | | Thwaite 170 1044 482 | | Tuttington 227 1620 822 | | Wickmere 307 1612 975 | | Wolterton 43 1142 722 | +--------------------------------------------------+ | Total 15,500 76,644 48,058 | +==================================================+[There is more information about individual parishes]
All the above parishes are in Aylsham Union, except Baconsthorpe and West Beckham, which are in Erpingham Union, and Booton, which is in St. Faith's Union. All are in Aylsham Police Division, except Belaugh, which is in Dereham Division. The population of the Hundred, in 1831, was 14,898. Its annual value, as assessed to the PROPERTY TAX, was £56,205, in 1815, and £85,527, in 1842.
* @ AYLSHAM UNION comprises 35 parishes in South Erpingham, and 11 parishes in Eynesford Hundred. (See page 344. [this is in Eynesford Hundred description]) These 46 parishes comprise an area of 106 square miles; and in 1841, had 20,056 inhabitants, of whom 9869 were males and 10,187 females. Their average annual expenditure, during the three years preceding the formation of the Union, was £20,391; but in 1838, it was only £9652. For the quarter ending Dec. 1844, it was £2569.
The Union Workhouses are at Buxton and Oulton, both of which are old Houses of Industry; that at Buxton, 4 miles S.S.E. of Aylsham, being built before the year 1800, for nine incorporated parishes, (marked * in the foregoing table;) and that at Oulton, 3½ miles N.W. of Aylsham, being altered in 1804, as a Workhouse for the six parishes marked @ in the foregoing table.
After the formation of the Union, in 1836, these houses were altered and enlarged, at the cost of about £1200. That at Buxton has room for about 400 paupers, and that at Oulton for about 100. Only the aged and infirm are sent to the latter, where the average weekly cost of each inmate, for food and clothing, is 2s 11.; but at Buxton it is 2s. 0½d. The Union has two chaplains and eight surgeons; and Mr. Wm. Hill, of Marsham, is Union Clerk and Supt. Registrar.
The Masters of the Workhouses are, Mr. Thomas Potter, at Buxton, and Mr. E. F. Barnaby, at Oulton. Mr. J. Wright and Mr. A. Sands are the district registrars and relieving officers. In the months of Oct. Nov. and Dec. 1844, no fewer than 18 persons died in this Union, each of them above 80, and three of them above 90 years of age.
© Mike Bristow
April 2006