Ditchingham 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

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 ...

. Ditchingham is located north of Bungay and south-east 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 ...

, along the course of 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 ...

History

Ditchingham's name is of

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

origin and derives from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

for the homestead or settlement of 'Dicca's' people. 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 ...

, Ditchingham is listed as a settlement of 36 households in the

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101. In mathematics 100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...

of Lodding. In 1086, the village formed part of the East Anglian estates of King William I. In 1855, an Anglican convent known as the Community of All Hallows was founded in Ditchingham by Lavinia Crosse and Reverend William E. Scudamore. The convent acted as a refuge for women in 'moral danger' and other destitute individuals. The community closed in 2018. Lilias Rider Haggard's novel, ''The Rabbit Skin Cap (1939)'' tells the life story of George Baldry, a local inventor and poacher. The picture on the front cover of the book is a painting by Edward Seago of local schoolboy, Douglas Walter Gower. In later life, Gower discovered the tusk of a

woolly mammoth The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived from the Middle Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with the African ...

near the

long barrow Long barrows are a style of monument constructed across Western Europe in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE, during the Early Neolithic period. Typically constructed from earth and either timber or stone, those using the latter material repres ...

on Broome Heath which is now displayed in Norwich Castle Museum. Much of the surrounding countryside is part of the estate centred on Ditchingham Hall which was built in the 18th century and features gardens designed by

Capability Brown Lancelot "Capability" Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783) was an English gardener and landscape architect, a notable figure in the history of the English landscape garden style. Unlike other architects ...

. The Hall is the ancestral seat of the Earl Ferrers and is currently in the possession of Robert Shirley, 14th Earl Ferrers. In the Nineteenth Century, a

silk Silk is a natural fiber, natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving, woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoon (silk), c ...

factory was built in Ditchingham which was later converted into a

maltings A malt house, malt barn, or maltings, is a building where cereal grain is converted into malt by soaking it in water, allowing it to sprout and then drying it to stop further growth. The malt is used in brewing beer, whisky and in certain foo ...

and later use as a depot for the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The building was severely damaged by fire in 1999 and is now in residential use.

Geography

According to the 2021 census, Ditchingham has a total population of 1,823 people which demonstrates an increase from the 1,635 people listed in the 2011 census. Ditchingham is located on the course of the

with the junction of the A143, between Gorleston-on-Sea and Haverhill, and the B1332, between

Trowse Trowse (pronounced by those from Norwich and by elderly residents of the village), also called Trowse with Newton, is a village in South Norfolk which lies about south-east of Norwich city centre on the banks of the River Yare. It covers an ...

and Ditchingham, is located in the parish.

St. Mary's Church

Ditchingham's parish church is dedicated to

Saint Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

and dates from the Fifteenth Century. St. Mary's is located on Church Lane and has been Grade I listed since 1960. St. Mary's was restored in 1846 by

Anthony Salvin Anthony Salvin (17 October 1799 – 17 December 1881) was an English architect. He gained a reputation as an expert on Middle Ages, medieval buildings and applied this expertise to his new buildings and his restorations, such as those of the ...

and again in the 1870s by Frederick Preedy.The church boasts an interesting set of stained-glass windows depicting Edmund Tudor with

Lady Margaret Beaufort Lady Margaret Beaufort ( ; 31 May 1443 – 29 June 1509) was a major figure in the Wars of the Roses of the late 15th century, and mother of King Henry VII of England, the first House of Tudor, Tudor monarch. She was also a second cousin o ...

as well as others which may have been imported from

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

after the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

Chicken Roundabout

Ditchingham's Chicken Roundabout had been home to a group of feral chickens as early as the mid-1990s, cared for by a local man called Gordon Knowles. The number of birds living at the roundabout increased and declined over the years due to a range of factors including

Avian influenza Avian influenza, also known as avian flu or bird flu, is a disease caused by the influenza A virus, which primarily affects birds but can sometimes affect mammals including humans. Wild aquatic birds are the primary host of the influenza A viru ...

and theft. In 2010, the remaining chickens were given to an animal charity with a plaque to Knowles' role in the community being erected in 2012.

Amenities

Parravani's ice creams were established in the village in the early C20, and Lamberts Coaches are another long-established local company.

Notable residents

* Sir John Hobart, 3rd Baronet- (1628-1683) landowner and politician, born in Ditchingham. * Philip Bedingfield MP- (d.1660) landowner and politician, lived in Ditchingham. * R-Adm. Samuel Sutton- (1760-1832) Royal Navy officer, lived & died in Ditchingham. * Lavinia Crosse- (1821-1890) founder of the Community of All Hallows, Ditchingham. * Dr. James Franck Bright- (1832-1920) historian and academic, lived & died in Ditchingham. * Sir H. Rider Haggard KBE- (1856-1925) author, lived & died in Ditchingham. * William Carr- (1862-1925) biographer and historian, lived & died in Ditchingham. * Diana Athill OBE- (1917-2019) novelist and editor, brought up in Ditchingham. * Lt. Robert Shirley, Earl Ferrers- (1929-2012) politician and aristocrat, lived in Ditchingham. * Kevin Steggles- (b.1961) Ipswich Town and Port Vale footballer, born in Ditchingham. * Deb Murrell- (b.1966) cyclist, born in Ditchingham. * Jimmy Lewis- (b.1967)

cricketer, born in Ditchingham.

Governance

Ditchingham is part of the

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...

of Ditchingham & Earsham for local elections and is part of 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's national constituency is Waveney Valley which has been represented by the Green Party's Adrian Ramsay MP since 2024.

War Memorial

Ditchingham War Memorial is located inside St. Mary's Church and is a brass structure including a life-sized prone statue of a British soldier created by Derwent Wood. The memorial lists the following names for the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

: And, the following from the

Notes

References

Footnotes

External links

Bath Hills Footpath
— Bungay Tourism
Information from Genuki Norfolk
on Ditchingham. {{authority control Villages in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk