Cranworth 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 below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the

Breckland district Breckland is a local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Dereham. The district had a population of 130,491 at the 2011 Census. The district derives its name from the Breckland landscape region, a gorse-covered sandy ...

of the English county of

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 ...

History

Cranworth's name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and derives from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

for an enclosed part of land with cranes and herons. 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 ...

, Cranworth is recorded as a settlement of 42 households located in the

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

of Mitford. In 1086, the village formed part of the estates of King William.

Geography

According to the 2011 Census, Cranworth has a population of 419 residents living in 175 households. Cranworth falls within the constituency of South West Norfolk and is represented at

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

by Liz Truss MP of the Conservative Party.

St. Mary's Church

Cranworth's parish church is of

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

origin and is dedicated to Saint Mary. The interior of the church is almost exclusively Victorian and the font dates from the Fourteenth Century.

Notable residents

Robert Rolfe, 1st Baron Cranworth Robert Monsey Rolfe, 1st Baron Cranworth, PC (18 December 1790 – 26 July 1868) was a British lawyer and Liberal politician. He twice served as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. Background and education Born at Cranworth, Norfolk, he w ...

- British lawyer and politician

War memorial

Cranworth's war memorial takes the form of a cuboid stone column topped with a stone carving of an angel of victory. The memorial is located in St. Mary's Churchyard and lists the following names for the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

: * Lance-Corporal Robert R. Tuttle (1892-1916), 1st Battalion,

Royal Norfolk Regiment The Royal Norfolk Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army until 1959. Its predecessor regiment was raised in 1685 as Henry Cornwall's Regiment of Foot. In 1751, it was numbered like most other British Army regiments and named ...

* Driver William F. Lyon (1894-1919), Royal Army Service Corps att. 4th Cavalry Division * Private Victor T. Edwards (d.1916), 8th Battalion,

Border Regiment The Border Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, which was formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 34th (Cumberland) Regiment of Foot and the 55th (Westmorland) Regiment of Foot. After service i ...

* Private Ernest W. Graves (1880-1918), 6th Battalion,

Royal East Kent Regiment The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment), formerly the 3rd Regiment of Foot, was a line infantry regiment of the British Army traditionally raised in the English county of Kent and garrisoned at Canterbury. It had a history dating back to 1572 and ...

* Private Frederick J. Green (1899-1918), 61st Battalion,

Machine Gun Corps The Machine Gun Corps (MGC) was a corps of the British Army, formed in October 1915 in response to the need for more effective use of machine guns on the Western Front in the First World War. The Heavy Branch of the MGC was the first to use tanks ...

* Private John Hagan (d.1916), 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment * Private Lionel W. Green (1897-1917), 1/5th Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment * Private Sidney Hipkin (d.1918), 9th Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment * Private Bartlett J. Hart (1894-1917), 1st Battalion, Queen's Royal Regiment * Private Frederick C. Ward (d.1918), 1st Battalion, Queen's Royal Regiment * Johnathan Berry * Frederic S. Sidell And, the following for the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

: * Able-Seaman Geoffrey G. Ebbage (1923-1941), '' HMS Calcutta'' * Private George Graves (1920-1940), 2nd Battalion,

Durham Light Infantry The Durham Light Infantry (DLI) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1968. It was formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 68th (Durham) Regiment of Foot (Light Infantry) and t ...

* Albert Clarke * Robert HarrisWar Memorials Online. (2015). Retrieved December 20, 2022. https://www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk/memorial/215880/

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk Breckland District