Norfolk - Ovington

Francis White's History, Gazetteer, and Directory, of Norfolk 1854, pp. 862-863

OVINGTON, a parish 1½ mile N.E. of Watton, has 65 souls, 314 houses, and 1,497 acres of land, formerly belonging to the Knights Templars of Carbrooke, and afterwards to the Knights of Malta. The University of Cambridge owns part of the parish and the manors of Ovington, Bozomes and Harvey ; and Lady Harvey of Thorpe, by Norwich, has the manor of Woodhouse : King's College, Cambridge, and others, are also proprietors. The CHURCH, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, has a fine Norman door anda square tower. The rectory, valued in the King's book at £7 3s. 6½d., is in the gift of Cambridge University, and incumbency of the Rev. Edward Simons, M.A., who has a yearly rent of £415, awarded in 1843, in lieu of tithes. The Fuel Allotment, 22a. 1r. 33p., awarded in 1801, is let, with four cottages and a barn, for £50 19s. In this, and the adjoining parish of Saham-Toney, are traces of a Roman encampment.

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