Norfolk - Litcham

Kelly's Directory for Cambridgeshire, Norfolk & Suffolk, 1883, p.369.

LITCHAM is a parish 3 miles north-east-by-north from Dunham station on the Lynn branch of the Gtreat Eastern railway, and 9 north-west from East Dereham, in the Western division of the county, Launditch hundred, Mitford & Launditch union, East Dereham county court district, rural deanery of Brisley and archdeaconry of Norfolk and diocese of Norwich. The church of All Saints is a large edifice of flint with stone dressings, in the Early English style: it has chancel, nave, aisles and south porch, with a square brick tower containing 5 bells, and has been thoroughly restored and re-seated: an oak screen of elaborate workmanship of the early part of the fifteenth century, separates the nave from the chancel, in which there are several memorials: in 1851 two stained windows were put up in the south aisle by D. Lynes esq. and Miss C. Lynes, in memory of their parents. The register dates from the year 1550. The living is a discharged rectory, consolidated with that of East Lexham, in the gift of and held since 1855 by the Rev. George William Winter M.A. of University College, Oxford. The tithes are commuted for £440 and there are 45 acres of glebe and house. There are chapels for Wesleyans and Primtiive Methodists. Here are a variety of small charities, and an almshouse for two aged persons. A portion of the commons has been enclosed, but there are still upwards of 50 acres left for recreation and the use of the poor. The Rev. W. A. W. Keppel B.A. of Lexham Hall, who is lord of the manor, and William Thomas Collison esq. of Bilney Hall, are the chief landowners. The soil is various; subsoil, gravel and clay. The chief crops are barley, wheat and roots. The area is 1,932 acres; rateable value £3,442; the population in 1881 was 801.

Parish Clerk, William King.

POST, MONEY ORDER & TELEGRAPH OFFICE & Savings Bank.— Nicholas Polkinghorne, postmaster. Letters received from Swaffham at 5.45 a.m. & dispatched at 6.40 p.m.

COUNTY MAGISTRATES FOR THETFORD & LAUNDITCH
PETTY SESSIONAL DIVISION.

Capt. Henry Elwin Hyde, Montague house, East Dereham
Rev. William Henry Augustus Keppel, East Lexham Swaffham
Charles North esq. Rougham
Clerk to the Mahistrates, Walter May Barton, East Dereham

Petty Sessions are held at the Bull inn, Litcham, about four times in the year at 11 a.n. and at East Dereham every friday.