Norfolk - Great Dunham

Kelly's Directory for Cambridgeshire, Norfolk & Suffolk, 1883, p.304.

GREAT DUNHAM is a parish and ancient village of detached houses, 1 mile north-east from Dunham station, 5 north-east from Swaffham and 117½ from London, in the Western division of the county, Launditch hundred, Mitford & Launditch union, Swaffham county court district, rural deanery of Brisley and archdeaconry of Norfolk and diocese of Norwich. The church of St. Andrew is a very ancient Anglo-Saxon structure: it consists of chancel, nave and central tower with two bells: in the chancel is a brass to the memory of Henry Bastard gent. lord of the manor, who died August 23rd, 1624: the font and piscina are curious. The ruins of a Roman altar, and of a church dedicated to St. Mary, have been found in the garden of the rectory house. The register dates from the year 1539. The living is a rectory, yearly value £600, with 44 acres of glebe, in the gift of Robert Blake Humfrey esq. of Wroxham Hall, and held since 1875 by the Rev. John Blake Humfrey B.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge. Here are chapels for Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists. The poor have benefit of some charities, amounting to £5 12s. yearly, besides a fuel allotment of 33 acres, let at £47 yearly. Robert Blake Humfrey esq. is lord of the manor. The principal landowners are Messieurs Walpole Chamberlayne, Thomas Palmer and Captain Davey. The soil is heavy; subsoil, clay and gault. The chief crops are wheat, barley, hay and turnips. The area is 1,967 acres; rateable value £3,435; the population in 1881 was 394.

Parish Clerk, William Cory.

POST OFFICE.—Jonathan Dunfer, postmaster. Letters arrive here from Swaffham by mail cart at 5.30 a.m. & are dispatched at 7 p.m. Litcham is the nearest money order & telegraph office

A School Board of 5 members was formed in 1873; R. Curtis, 15 Coronation Square, King's Lynn, clerk to the board

Board School, average attendance about 70, Mrs. Elizabeth A. Daniels, mistress