Norfolk - Hilgay

Kelly's Directory for Cambridgeshire, Norfolk & Suffolk, 1883, p.344:

HILGAY is a large village and extensive parish 4 miles south from Downham Market and 83½ from London, in the Western division of the county, hundred of Clackclose, union and county court district of Downham, rural deanery of Fincham, archdeaconry of Norwich and diocese of Norfolk. The village is on the river Wissey, which falls into the Ouse, and considerable portions of the parish lie on either side of the latter river. The Hilgay Fen railway station, on the East Anglian branch of the Great Eastern line, is 3½ miles west from the village; there is also one at Fordham on the Downham and Stoke Ferry branch, half a mile distant. The church of All Saints is a large and handsome building in the Decorates style, and the south aisle in the Perpendicular; it is approached by an avenue of trees of great length and beauty, and has been restored; the tower is a solid brick edifice, and contains a good peal of bells, re-hung in 1877, at a cost of upwards of £200: in 1881 a fine organ of three manuals and 2½ octaves of pedals was presented by the present rector: at the same time a solid and handsome lych-gate was added at each end of the avenue of trees, at a cost of £160, the gift of Miss Beechey. The register dates from the year 1583. The living is a rectory, yearly value £1,600 tithe rent charge, with residence and 85 acres of glebe, in the gift of Hertford College, Oxford, and held since 1872 by the Rev. St. Vincent Beechey M.A. of Caius College, Cambridge, honorary canon of Manchester and founder of Rossall school, Fleetwood: on the death of the late rector and canon, the Rev. J. W. Parkes, the advowson was sold and presented by the purchaser to Hertford College, Oxford. Here is also the district church of St. Mark, erected during the last incumbency: it is a plain structure, consisting of a nave and a turret for 1 bell: it contains an organ: the seats are all free: the Rev. Corrie Jackson M.A. of St. John's College, Cambridge, is curate. There are two Wesleyan and two Primitive Methodist chapels. There is a dole at Christmas of 40 sixpenny loaves, and 169 acres, yielding on the average £260 yearly. Here is an ancient hall, formerly one of the seats of the Abbots of Ramsay, to whom the estate belonged before the dissolution of the monastery: it was then (A.D. 1537) granted, with the advowson of the living, by Henry VIII. to James Howe esq. who daughter was married to Sir John Willoughby knt. from whom it passed to the Wrays and the Sandersons, and, in course, of time, by sale, to G. W. Manby esq. inventor of the apparatus for saving life from shipwreck, and afterwards to William Jones, formerly Marshal of the Queen's Bench Prison, in whose family it continued until 1878, when it was purchased by Major Michael Stocks D.L., J.P. in whose hands it now is. The Rev. Phineas Fletcher, the celebrated poet, author of the "Purple Island," and other poems, was rector here from 1621 to the time of the Civil Wars. Major Michael Stocks D.L., J.P. who is lord of the manor, Edmund Ethelstone Peel esq. and Sir Charles Rowley bart. are the principal landowners. The soil consists chiefly of upland and fen, the former a rich clay and gravel, the latter peat with good clay underlying. The chief crops are wheat, barley, oats and beans. The area is 7,860 acres, of which 6,000 are fen; rateable value, £11,705; the population in 1881 was 684.

TEN MILE BANK is a hamlet on the Ouse.

Parish Clerk.—William Ambrose.

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POST OFFICE.— Charles Edward Lock, receiver. Letters received from Downham at 7 a.m.; dispatched at 6.15 p.m.; dispatched at 10.35 a.m. on sundays. The nearest money order office is at Downham; telegraph office at Southery.
POST OFFICE, Ten Mile Bank.— Peckett Porter, receiver. Letters received from Downham at 8.15 a.m.; dispatched at 4.55 p.m. No Sunday delivery.
PILLAR LETTER BOX, Hilgay Fen Railway Station.— Cleared at 4.40 p.m.; weekdays only.