Hockwold cum Wilton (''"Hock/mallow wood and willow-tree farm/settlement"'') is 10 miles west of

Thetford Thetford is a market town and civil parish in the Breckland District of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road between Norwich and London, just east of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, covering an area of , in 2015 had a population of 24, ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, England and is in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk. It is located near several

USAF The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

airbases, notably

RAF Lakenheath Royal Air Force Lakenheath or RAF Lakenheath is a Royal Air Force station near the village of Lakenheath in Suffolk, England, UK, north-east of Mildenhall and west of Thetford. The base also sits close to Brandon. Despite being an RAF sta ...

and

RAF Mildenhall Royal Air Force Mildenhall or RAF Mildenhall is a Royal Air Force (RAF) station located near Mildenhall in Suffolk, England. Despite its status as a Royal Air Force station, it primarily supports United States Air Force (USAF) operations, ...

. It is situated on the boundary between the geographical areas of the Breckland – a region of sandy heathland now largely forested – and the flat, low-lying

Fens A fen is a type of wetland. Fen, Fenn, Fens, Fenns, may also refer to: People * Fen (name), a Chinese given name and surname * Fen Cresswell (1915–1966), New Zealand cricketer * Fen McDonald (1891–1915), Australian rules footballer * Kees ...

, with some characteristics of both. The village is the location of the primary campus of Iceni Academy. Previously this was Hockwold Primary School. The village has two churches ( St Peter's, now redundant and cared for by the

Churches Conservation Trust The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...

, and St James') and a Methodist chapel.

History

An important Roman hoard of silver tableware and coins was found in Hockwold in 1962. It is now part of the Roman-British collections at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. Originally, the village was located next to the river. However, after the Black Death infected the village, it was burnt down and relocated a mile to the north.

Hockwold Hall

Hockwold Hall is an Elizabethan house on the site of an earlier manor. The manor of Hockwold is mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086. Hockwold Hall, with origins in the late 15th century, is a Tudor manor house with a substantial extension built by a Royal Prince at the end of the 19th century. Sir John Tyndale (Tyndall), Baron Tyndale of Thetford, Governor of The Tower of London, KB (1475–1539) was born at Hockwold Cum Wilton Manor as was his son Sir Thomas Tyndale (Tyndall) 1505–1583, who also died there. Sir John's brother,

William Tyndale William Tyndale (; sometimes spelled ''Tynsdale'', ''Tindall'', ''Tindill'', ''Tyndall''; – ) was an English biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation in the years leading up to his execu ...

(Tyndall) (1484–1536), a 16th-century scholar and linguist died a martyr for translating the scriptures from Greek and Hebrew into vernacular English so that commoners could read the Bible for themselves, rather than having to depend on the church hierarchy to interpret the official Latin Vulgate. The

Tyndale Bible The Tyndale Bible generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale into Early Modern English, made . Tyndale's Bible is credited with being the first Bible translation in the English language to work directly from Hebre ...

was the basis for the King James Bible and it survived book burners, but he did not. Tyndale was tied to a stake, strangled with a rope and torched outside a castle near Brussels on October 6th, 1536. The royalist Arthur Heveningham lived at the Hall until 1657. His brother, William Heveningham, was one of the regicides of Charles I, and his daughter Abigail married

John Digby, 1st Earl of Bristol John Digby, 1st Earl of Bristol (February 1580 – 21 January 1653),David L. Smith, 'Digby, John, first earl of Bristol (1580–1653)’, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008. was an E ...

. Sir

Cyril Wyche Sir Cyril Wyche PRS (c.1632 – 28 December 1707) was an English lawyer and politician. Early life He was born in Constantinople, Turkey, where his father, Sir Peter Wyche, was the English Ambassador. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxfor ...

, a founder member of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

, took over the estate in 1688 and lived there until 1707. Prince Victor Duleep Singh, the eldest son of the last Maharaja of Lahore, a godson of Queen Victoria, came to live at Hockwold Hall in 1895.

Notes

External links

Hockwold village website
Villages in Norfolk King's Lynn and West Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk {{Norfolk-geo-stub