Garboldisham () 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 ...

, part of Guiltcross in the

Breckland Breckland in Norfolk and Suffolk is a 39,433 hectare Special Protection Area (SPA) under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. The SPA partly overlaps the 7,544 hectare Breckland Special Area of Conservation. As a la ...

district, in

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 Nor ...

, England, near the boundary with

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include ...

. In the 2001 census the parish had a population of 721 which increased to 969 at the 2011 Census.

Origin of name

A D Mills (2003) says it was a 'homestead or village of a man called Gǣrbald'. It appeared 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 manusc ...

(1086) as Gerboldesham. The traditional view of Gaerbold is that it is an Old English name, i.e. homestead of Garbold. Others argue it has a Viking origin with Garbold being a famous Viking. As described above, the boundary between Anglian, Viking and possibly even Iceni is blurred in the light of recent genetic and linguistic research. To the south of the village are the hamlets of Smallworth and Broomscot Common, the name of the latter according to some recalling the village's ancient pagan past, but more likely, so Carole Hough thinks, an affiliation to a Scandinavian with the surname Brun. This name might reflect the Viking invasions or Scandinavian connections of the

Wuffingas The Wuffingas, Uffingas or Wiffings were the ruling dynasty of East Anglia, the long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. The Wuffingas took their name from Wuffa, an early East Anglian king. ...

, founders of the kingdom of East Anglia. It might even go further back in time if you believe theories that the pre-Roman

Iceni The Iceni ( , ) or Eceni were a Brittonic tribe of eastern Britain during the Iron Age and early Roman era. Their territory included present-day Norfolk and parts of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and bordered the area of the Corieltauvi to the we ...

inhabiting this area were Old English speakers rather than Cymric/Welsh.

Notable buildings

The village contains a

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional se ...

with independent shop, selling a range of groceries as well as East Anglian regional "gourmet" produce. On Church Road is Garboldisham

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

School, a primary school with about 90 pupils. The school is next to Garboldisham's St John the Baptist Church and opposite the village hall. There is also a small

Methodist chapel Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

, situated south of the A1066. The ''Fox'' public house, on the crossroads of the A1066 and Hopton/Harling Road, closed in 2007 but was purchased by a village consortium in 2016 and reopened in December that year.

History

There are the ruins of Garboldisham All Saints Church, where the 14th century western face collapsed into the nave in 1734. Garboldisham Manor was a substantial house designed by George Gilbert Scott junior in the Jacobean style. The hall was demolished in 1952. There is a 10-foot high

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

round barrow on Garboldisham Heath, known locally as 'Soldier's Hill' and 'Boadicea's Grave', although there is no evidence that Queen

Boudicca Boudica or Boudicca (, known in Latin chronicles as Boadicea or Boudicea, and in Welsh as ()), was a queen of the ancient British Iceni tribe, who led a failed uprising against the conquering forces of the Roman Empire in AD 60 or 61. She ...

is buried here. Local antiquarian

Basil Brown Basil John Wait Brown (22 January 1888 – 12 March 1977) was an English archaeologist and astronomer. Self-taught, he discovered and excavated a 6th-century Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in 1939, which has come to be called "one of th ...

carried out an excavation at the mound around 1963, and uncovered a burial urn, some cremated human bone, two flint flakes and a flint scraper. The burial probably dates from around 1300 BC.

John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough (2 June 18224 July 1883), styled Earl of Sunderland from 1822 to 1840 and Marquess of Blandford from 1840 to 1857, was a British Conservative cabinet minister, politician, peer, and noblem ...

and grandfather of Sir

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

, was born in Garboldisham Hall in 1822. Archaeological test pits were dug between 2011-2014. The report was published in 2019.

Village life

Garboldisham has active cricket teams. The "Garboldisham Road" was mentioned in the ''

A Bit of Fry and Laurie ''A Bit of Fry & Laurie'' is a British sketch comedy television series written by and starring former Cambridge Footlights members Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, broadcast on both BBC1 and BBC2 between 1989 and 1995. It ran for four series and t ...

'' sketches "Information" and "Strawberries and Cream".

References

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