WRETHAM, (EAST and WEST,) about 6 miles N.N.E. of Thetford are two adjoining parishes. East Wretham has 194 souls, 2572 acres, a small village it its own name, and another called Stone Bridge, in a rivulet, nearly a mile E. of the church. West Wretham has 103 souls, 3121 acres, a few scattered houses, and Wretham Hall, a neat mansion in a pleasant park, about a mile N.W. of the church. The mansion is the seat of Wyrley Birch, Esq., owner of both parishes, lord of the manor, and patron of the consolidated rectories, valued in 1831, at £550, and in the King's Books, one at £11. 12s. 3½d., and the other at £12. 11s. 3d. The Rev. F. L. Birch, M.A., is the incumbent. East Wretham Church (St. Ethelbert,) is a small neat edifice; but that at West Wretham (St. Lawrence,) has been long in ruins. A new Rectory House has recently bee erected, and the tithes were commuted in 1839 for £539 per annum. DIRECTORY, (marked * are at Stone Bridge:)— Rev. Frederick Lane Birch, M.A., Rectory; Mary Abbott*, shopkeeper; Mrs. Sus. Abbott, Robert Chilvers, vict. Dog and Partridge*; Samuel Kitton Gayford, farmer; Henry Ovington*, corn miller. Those in West Wretham are, Wyrley Birch, Esq., Hall; George Wyrley Birch, Forest Lodge; Edward Abbott, land agent and farmer, Thorpe Hall; Lucy Palmer and Sons, farmers, Foulmere
© Transcribed by E.C.Apling, May 1999.
1891 Census Names Index for East Wretham
1891 Census Names Index for West Wretham
Kelly's Directory 1883 - East Wretham
Kelly's Directory 1883 - West Wretham
White's Directory 1883
Kelly's 1896 - East Wretham [GENUKI-NFK]
Kelly's 1896 - West Wretham [GENUKI-NFK]
Shropham hundred
Thetford union
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