Hockwold cum Wilton is a
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 ...
and village in the
English county of
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 ...
.
Hockwold is located west of
Thetford
Thetford is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Breckland District of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road (England), A11 road between Norwich and London, just east of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, coverin ...
and south-west 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 ...
.
History
Hockwold cum Wilton'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 hock forest and willow-tree farmstead.
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, Hockwold cum Wilton is recorded as a settlement of 12 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 Grimshoe. In 1086, the village was part of the
East Anglian
East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included.
The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...
estates of
William de Warenne.
Several
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of Roman civilization
*Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...
buildings have been found in Hockwold cum Wilton including a former temple in Sawbench Woods. In 1962, a hoard of silver cups were found in the parish which are currently held by the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
.
The only
pilgrim badge
Pilgrim badges are decorations worn by some of those who undertake a Christian pilgrimage to a place considered holy by the Church. They became very popular among Catholics in the later medieval period. Typically made of lead alloy, they were sold ...
of
Saint Andrew
Andrew the Apostle ( ; ; ; ) was an apostle of Jesus. According to the New Testament, he was a fisherman and one of the Twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus.
The title First-Called () used by the Eastern Orthodox Church stems from the Gospel of Jo ...
to be found outside of
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
and
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
was found in the parish in the 1980s.
Geography
According to the
2021 census, Hockwold cum Wilton has a population of 1,304 people which shows an increase from the 1,195 people listed in the
2011 census.
St. James' Church
Hockwold cum Wilton's parish church is dedicated to
Saint James the Great
James the Great ( Koinē Greek: Ἰάκωβος, romanized: ''Iákōbos''; Aramaic: ܝܥܩܘܒ, romanized: ''Yaʿqōḇ''; died AD 44) was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. According to the New Testament, he was the second of the apostles t ...
and dates from the Fourteenth Century. St. James' is located on Church Lane and has been Grade I listed since 1959. The church holds intermittent Sunday service.
St. Peter's Church
There is another derelict church dedicated to
Saint Peter
Saint Peter (born Shimon Bar Yonah; 1 BC – AD 64/68), also known as Peter the Apostle, Simon Peter, Simeon, Simon, or Cephas, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus and one of the first leaders of the Jewish Christian#Jerusalem ekklēsia, e ...
in Hockwold cum Wilton which dates from the Fourteenth Century. St. Peter's is located on Station Road and has been Grade I listed since 1959. The church is no longer open for Sunday service and is in the care of the
Churches Conservation Trust
The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...
.
The church features several stained-glass windows designed by
Clayton and Bell
Clayton and Bell was one of the most prolific and proficient British workshops of stained-glass windows during the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century. The partners were John Richard Clayton (1827–1913) and Alfred Bell (1832� ...
depicting the
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, beam or stake and left to hang until eventual death. It was used as a punishment by the Achaemenid Empire, Persians, Ancient Carthag ...
, the
Resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions involving the same person or deity returning to another body. The disappearance of a body is anothe ...
and the
Ascension.
Hockwold Hall
Hockwold Hall is an Elizabethan house on the site of an earlier manor. The manor of Hockwold is mentioned 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. Hockwold Hall, with origins in the late 15th century, is a Tudor manor house with a substantial extension built by a Royal Prince at the end of the 19th century.
Sir John Tyndale (Tyndall), Baron Tyndale of Thetford, Governor of The Tower of London, KB (1475–1539) was born at Hockwold Cum Wilton Manor as was his son Sir Thomas Tyndale (Tyndall) 1505–1583, who also died there. Sir John's brother,
William Tyndale
William Tyndale (; sometimes spelled ''Tynsdale'', ''Tindall'', ''Tindill'', ''Tyndall''; – October 1536) was an English Biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestantism, Protestant Reformation in the year ...
(Tyndall) (1484–1536), a 16th-century scholar and linguist died a martyr for translating the scriptures from Greek and Hebrew into vernacular English so that commoners could read the Bible for themselves, rather than having to depend on the church hierarchy to interpret the official Latin Vulgate. The
Tyndale Bible
The Tyndale Bible (TYN) generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale into Early Modern English, made . Tyndale's biblical text is credited with being the first English-language Biblical translation to work directly ...
was the basis for the
King James Bible
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...
and it survived book burners, but he did not survive. Tyndale was tied to a stake, strangled with a rope and torched outside a castle near Brussels on October 6, 1536.
The royalist Arthur Heveningham lived at the Hall until 1657. His brother,
William Heveningham, was one of the regicides of
Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
, and his daughter Abigail married
John Digby, 1st Earl of Bristol
John Digby, 1st Earl of Bristol (February 1580 – 21 January 1653),David L. Smith, 'Digby, John, first earl of Bristol (1580–1653)’, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008. was an ...
. Sir
Cyril Wyche
Sir Cyril Wyche FRS ( – 28 December 1707) was an English lawyer, politician and administrator. He served two terms in the Dublin Castle administration as Chief Secretary for Ireland and was a Lord Justice of Ireland from 1693 to 1695. He wa ...
, a founder member of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
, took over the estate in 1688 and lived there until 1707. Prince
Victor Duleep Singh, the eldest son of the last Maharaja of Lahore, a godson of Queen Victoria, came to live at Hockwold Hall in 1895.
The gates to the hall are reputedly haunted by a white lady who supposedly unnerves drivers.
Governance
Hockwold cum Wilton 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 Feltwell 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 ...
of
King's Lynn and West Norfolk
King's Lynn and West Norfolk is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in the town of King's Lynn. The district also includes the t ...
.
The village's national constituency is
South West Norfolk
South West Norfolk is a Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, constituency represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 United Kingdom general election, 2024 by Terr ...
which has been represented by
Labour's Terry Jermy MP since 2024.
War Memorial
Hockwold cum Wilton War Memorial is an obelisk memorial in St. James' Churchyard. 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 ...
part of the memorial was unveiled in 1947 by Brig-Gen. Henri de Lotbiniere and the Reverend N.R.M. Hawthorn. 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 ...
:
The following names were added after the Second World War:
References
External links
Hockwold village website
{{authority control
Villages in Norfolk
King's Lynn and West Norfolk
Civil parishes in Norfolk