Cockthorpe is a village and former

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

in 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 Nort ...

.Ordnance Survey (2002). ''OS Explorer Map 251 - Norfolk Coast Central'' . It is north-west of Holt, north-west of

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

and north of

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. On 1 April 1935, the parish was abolished and merged with Binham.

History

The village's name is of mixed

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and s ...

and

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

origin and derives from an amalgamation of the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

and Old English for a outlying farmstead or settlement with an abundance of either chickens or gamebirds. 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 ...

, Cockthorpe is recorded as a settlement of 5 households 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 Greenhoe. The village formed parts of

William de Beaufeu William de Beaufeu was a medieval Bishop of Thetford and a major landholder mentioned in the Domesday Book.The Domesday Book, Englands Heritage, Then and Now, Editor: Thomas Hinde, Major Domesday landholders page 338 Life William's land holdin ...

. Between 1940 and 1961, Cockthorpe was host to

RAF Langham Royal Air Force Langham or more simply RAF Langham is a former Royal Air Force station, located at Langham, northwest of Norwich in the English county of Norfolk. It operated between 1940 and 1961. The airfield was the most northerly of the ...

, a satellite airfield for RAF Bircham Newton operated by

RAF Coastal Command RAF Coastal Command was a formation within the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was founded in 1936, when the RAF was restructured into Fighter, Bomber and Coastal Commands and played an important role during the Second World War. Maritime Aviation ...

Geography

Cockthorpe falls within the constituency of

North Norfolk North Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Cromer. The population at the 2011 Census was 101,149. History The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972. It was ...

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. ...

by Duncan Baker MP of the Conservative Party.

All Saints' Church

Cockthorpe's parish church is of Norman origin and was significantly rebuilt in the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Knott, S. (2022). Retrieved December 12, 2022. http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/cockthorpe/cockthorpe.htm

Notable residents

* Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell- British Naval Officer during the

War of the Spanish Succession The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict that took place from 1701 to 1714. The death of childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700 led to a struggle for control of the Spanish Empire between his heirs, Phili ...

* Sir Henry Gough MP- British nobleman and politician * Christopher Calthorpe- Virginian politician

References

{{reflist Villages in Norfolk Former civil parishes in Norfolk North Norfolk