MIDDLETON, 4 miles S.S.E. of Lynn, is a pleasant village on the Swaffham road, its parish comprising the hamlets of
Blackborough-end, Fair Green, Tower-end, and Hollow-end, and contains 190 houses, 932 inhabitants, and 3,092a. 2r. 28p. of land, rising boldly from picturesque vales of the Esk rivulet on the north, and the Black drain on the south. The widow of the late Thos. Wythe, Esq., of Middleton Hall, owns a great part of the soil, and is lady of the manor of Middleton, in which are many copyholds subject to arbitrary fines. She is also lessee of the Bishop of Norwich's manor of Blackborough, in which the land is leasehold for 21 years, renewable every seven. The CHURCH dedicated to the Virgin Mary, has a square tower with one bell. The living is a vicarage, valued in the King's book at £7, and has 12a. of glebe. The Very Rev. Peter S. Wood, L.L.D., is patron and incumbent, and impropriator of the rectorial tithes, commuted in 1840 for £432 2s. The vicarial tithes are commuted for £313 10s., and the Notley tithes for £99 18s. per annum. The latter belong to the rector of North Runcton. Edw. Everard, Esq., has a handsome seat here, beautified with tasteful pleasure grounds and shrubberies. About a mile E. of the village stands MIDDLETON TOWER, a massive brick pile, the only remains of the Castle, long the chief seat of the Lord Scales. The estate, in the time of Edward IV., was carried in marriage by an heiress to Earl Rivers, from whom it passed through various families to the present owner Mrs. Wythe. In the vale of the Nar, more than a mile south of the village, is the site of Blackborough Priory, founded in the reign of Henry II, for Benedictine nuns. Some small remains of the priory may still be seen in the outbuildings of the adjacent farm house. In digging among the foundations, in 1834, three stone and two wooden coffins were discovered in a vault, containing perfect skeletons. One was supposed to be the skeleton of a man seven feet high. At the same time a number of tesselated pavements, a gold seal, and other antiquities were found. After the dissolution it was granted to the Bishop of Norwich. The Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists have each a chapel here, and there is a school for poor children, supported by Miss Wythe1891 Census Names Index
Freebridge Lynn hundred
Freebridge Lynn union
White's 1845 [GENUKI-NFK]
Methodist Church, Blakeborough End [Simon Knott]
Blackborough End tower mill [Jonathan Neville]
Middleton North early postmill and early south postmill [both Jonathan Neville]
Mill Farm north postmill and south postmill [both Jonathan Neville]
Middleton watermill [Jonathan Neville]
More on Middleton [GENUKI-NFK]
More Parish Information [Geoff Lowe & Andrew Rivett]
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