Norfolk Hundreds

White's History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Norfolk 1845

SHROPHAM HUNDRED

Is of an irregular oblong figure, about 14 miles in length, from east to west, and from 6 to 8 in breadth, being bounded on the west by Grimshoe, on the north by Wayland and Forehoe, on the east by Depwade, and on the south by Guiltcross Hundred.

The soil is various, but much of it is a light sand, watered by a number of small rivulets, which unite their streams on its southern boundary, near Quiddenham, in the Thet rivulet, which flows westward to the Little Ouse, at Thetford. The latter borough is at the south-west angle of Shropham Hundred, which is traversed throughout its whole length by the Norwich and Thetford turnpike, and the Norwich and Brandon Railway, which has a station at the improving town of Attleborough.

This Hundred forms, with that of Guiltcross, the Deanery of Rockland, in the archdeaconry of Norfolk.

Petty Sessions are held on the first Thursday of every month, one year at East Harling and the next year at Larlingford. Wm. Clarke, Esq., of Thetford, is clerk to the magistrates.

Shropham, written in Domesday-book Serepham, was in the fee of the castle-manor of Buckenham, from the Confessor's time till the reign of Henry VI.

It contains 21 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.

	+===================================================+
	|                        |        |   Ann. |        |
	|     PARISHES.          |  Pop.  |   Val. | Acres. |
	|                        |        |   £.   |        |
	+---------------------------------------------------+
	| Attleborough *            1959      9604     5247 |
	| Besthorpe *                536      3374     2127 |
	| Brettenham                  62       842     1888 |
	| Bridgham                   328      1790     2639 |
	| Buckenham (New)            716      1262      315 |
	| Buckenham (Old)           1255      8106     4812 |
	| Eccles                     124      1440     1630 |
	| Ellingham (Grt*)           838      4492     2530 |
	| Hargham *                   93       904     1136 |
	| Hockham *                  644      2892     3196 |
	| Illington *                 93       664     1100 |
	| Kilverstone                 47       802     1869 |
	| Larling *                  205      1252     1506 |
	| Roudham *                   85       760     2025 |
	| Rockland All Sts *         352       864      916 |
	| Rockland Saint Andrew *    124      1796      669 |
	| Shropham *                 513      2786     2596 |
	| Snetterton *               261      1867     1668 |
	| Wilby                      124      1392     1382 |
	| Wretham (East)             194      1234     2572 |
	| Wretham (West)             103      1124     3121 |
	+---------------------------------------------------+
	|      Total +              8656    49,256   44,944 |
	+===================================================+

[There is more information about individual parishes]

* UNIONS.- The 12 parishes marked thus * are in WAYLAND UNION, which has its Workhouse at Rockland All Saints, as noticed at page 362 [description of Wayland Hundred]. When the census was taken in 1841, there were 36 persons in the Workhouse. Old and New Buckenham, Bridgham, Eccles, and Wilby, are in Guiltcross Union; and Brettenham, Kilverstone, and East and West Wretham, are in Thetford Union. (See page 401. [this is in Thetford Borough section])

+ The population of this Hundred, in 1831, was 8566. Its annual value, as assessed to the PROPERTY TAX, was £56,335, in 1815, and £55,168 in 1842. It is all in Hockham Police Division, except Old and New Buckenham, which are in that of Long Stratton.

For more information see :-

General description and layout of Hundreds.
Other hundred descriptions from White's 1845.

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