Norfolk - Forncett St. Mary

Kelly's Directory for Cambridgeshire, Norfolk & Suffolk, 1883, pp. 317-318.

FORNCETT ST. MARY is a village and parish near the Forncett St. Peter railway station, 6½ miles south-east from Wymondham and 10 south-west from Norwich, in the Southern division of the county, Depwade hundred, and union, and Wymondham county court district, rural deanery of Depwade and archdeaconry and diocese of Norwich. The church of St. Mary is a small building of flint with stone dressings, in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel and nave, and a square tower containing 3 bells. The register dates from the year 1662. The rectory was originally united with that of the adjoining parish Forncett St. Peter, but they were separated in 1845; the gross early value is £525, with residence, and including 8 acres of glebe, in the gift of the Earl of Ellingham and held since 1858 by the Rev. John Edward Cooper M.A. late fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and rural dean. The Primitive Meodists have a chapel here. William Henry Cole esq. is lord of the manor. The principal landowners are Sir Chares Harvey bart. the Girl's Hospital at Norwich and Sir F. G. M. Boileau bart. The soil is various; subsoil, various. The chief crops are wheat, barley, oats and beans. The area is 729 acres; rateable value, £1,115; the population in 1881 was 275.

Parish Clerk, Dennis Moore.

POST OFFICE.—Thomas Falgate, receiver. Letters received through Long Stratton at 7.15 a.m. & dispatched at 5.30 p.m. The nearest money order & telegraph office is at Long Stratton

National School, built in 1815, with a small endowment, Miss E. Fryer, mistress