Norfolk - Bodney

Kelly's Directory for Cambridgeshire, Norfolk & Suffolk, 1883, p. 252.

BODNEY is a parish 7 miles south from Swaffham and 6 west from Watton station, in the Western division of the county, Swaffham union and county court district, hundred of South Greenhoe, rural deanery of Cranwise [sic. = Cranwich], arch deaconry of Norfolk and diocese of Norwich. The church of St. Mary was a small, ancient thatched fabric of flint and pebbles, in the Early English style, with chancel and nave: some remains of the Saxon period are in the buttress at the north-east angle: the chancel has been thoroughly restored by W. Amhurst Tyssen Amherst esq. M.P.; Chester Cheston esq. of London was the architect, and Mr. W. Lawrie of Downham, was the contractor; the ancient consecration cross, a piscina and sedilla, and the original staircase to the rood loft, were discovered during the works. The register dates from the year 1754. The living is a discharged rectory, annexed to that of Great Cressingham, joint gross yearly value £700, with 52 acres of glebe, in the gift of the Lord Chancellor and held since 1882 by the Rev. Henry Stuart Fagan M.A. late fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, who resides at Cressingham. Bodney Hall was, at the French revolution, lent by the Tasburgh family, its then owners, to a body of French nuns, several of whom are buried in the churchyard on the north side. East of the church are the foundations of the old rectory house. W. Amhurst Tyssen Amherst esq. of Didlington Hall, is lord of the manor and principal landowner. The soil is sandy; subsoil, chalk and gravel. The chief crops are wheat, barley, oats, turnips and pasture. The area is 2,605 acres; rateable value £1,212; the population in 1881 was 103.

Parish Clerk, George Sayer.

Letters through Brandon. The nearest money order & telegraph office is at Mundford, 4 miles distant.

Platt Walter, Bodney Hall