Wortwell is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

and adjoining the county of

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

. It is located on both the

River Waveney The River Waveney is a river which forms the boundary between Suffolk and Norfolk, England, for much of its length within The Broads. The earliest attestation of the name is from 1275, ''Wahenhe'', from ''*wagen + ea'', meaning the river by a q ...

(which forms the county boundary) and the

A143 road The A143 is a road that runs from the Gorleston-on-Sea area of Great Yarmouth, in Norfolk to Haverhill, Suffolk, Haverhill in Suffolk. For much of the route (between Gorleston-on-Sea and Bury St Edmunds) the road is classified as a primary ro ...

, some 20 km east of Diss and 30 km west of

Lowestoft Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk (district), East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the List of extreme points of the United Kingdom, most easterly UK se ...

. The city of

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of the county of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. It lies by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. The population of the Norwich ...

lies approximately 30 km to the north. The village name originates from roughly 1704 when naturally occurring 'Wort' was found to spring from a well fed by a water source near to the local river Waveney. When the local brewer was satisfied with the beer brewed from the 'Wortwell' he would ring a bell to let the local residents know it was ready for drinking, which also gave the local drinking establishment its name, established as a pub in 1836. The civil parish has an area of and in the 2001 census had a population of 574 in 243 households, the population decreasing to 561 at the 2011 census. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

South Norfolk South Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, England. The largest town is Wymondham, and the district also includes the towns of Costessey, Diss, Harleston, Hingham, Loddon and Long Stratton. The council was based in Long S ...

. The village of Wortwell is one of the few in Norfolk not to be listed 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086. Until the end of the 19th century Wortwell was a hamlet within the parish of Mendham-in-Norfolk, (the modern village of Mendham is south of the River Waveney in

) becoming a parish in the 1885 boundary alterations.

Ezekiel Blomfield Ezekiel Blomfield (1778–1818) was a Congregational minister, author and compiler of religious works and works on natural history. His parents were Stephen Blomfield (born c.1740, died 27 November 1809) and Elizabeth Blomfield (née Luiss (Lewis ...

(1778–1818), a

Congregational Congregationalism (also Congregational Churches or Congregationalist Churches) is a Reformed Christianity, Reformed Christian (Calvinist) tradition of Protestant Christianity in which churches practice Congregationalist polity, congregational ...

minister, author and compiler of religious works and works on natural history, was buried on 21 July 1818 in the grounds of the Meeting House at Wortwell. Wortwell has a well established football club, and its two football teams currently play in the Anglian Combination Football League, the first team playing in division 2 and the reserves playing in division 6. Home games are played at the rec at Wortwell community centre village hall.

References

* Ordnance Survey (1999). ''OS Explorer Map 230 - Diss & Harleston''. . * Ordnance Survey (1999). ''OS Explorer Map 231 - Southwold & Bungay''. . * Office for National Statistics & Norfolk County Council (2001).
Census population and household counts for unparished urban areas and all parishes
'. Retrieved 2 December 2005.

External links

Diss Express
- village's local newspaper website .
Information from Genuki Norfolk
on Wortwell
Wortwell Community Centre
- Village Events page. Villages in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk {{Norfolk-geo-stub