Sedgeford 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 authority ...

in the

English county The counties of England are areas used for different purposes, which include administrative, geographical, cultural and political demarcation. The term "county" is defined in several ways and can apply to similar or the same areas used by each ...

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 ...

, about 5 miles south of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

and east of

the Wash The Wash is a rectangular bay and multiple estuary at the north-west corner of East Anglia on the East coast of England, where Norfolk, England, Norfolk meets Lincolnshire and both border the North Sea. One of Britain's broadest estuaries, it i ...

. It is 36 miles 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 See of Norwich, with ...

. Its area of had a population, including Fring, of 613 at the 2011 Census. It was estimated at 601 in 2019.City Population. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
/ref> For local-government purposes, it falls within 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 counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

King's Lynn and West Norfolk King's Lynn and West Norfolk is a local government district with borough status in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in the town of King's Lynn. The population of the Local Authority at the 2011 Census was 147,451. History The district was ...

. It lies in a farming valley with main crops of barley, wheat and sugar beat, in a belt of chalk with the small Docking River running through.

History

The villages name probably means "Secci's ford". It is recorded 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 ...

of 1086. Part of the church, built of flint and stone, is Anglo-Saxon in origin. It has one of the 124

round towers Round or rounds may refer to: Mathematics and science * The contour of a closed curve or surface with no sharp corners, such as an ellipse, circle, rounded rectangle, cant, or sphere * Rounding, the shortening of a number to reduce the number ...

in Norfolk. There is archaeological evidence of people living there in much earlier times: remains of Roman villas, pottery, a gold torc from the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

, and

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

flint tools found in fields and gardens. Furthermore, it is crossed by two ancient roads, the

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

Icknield Way The Icknield Way is an ancient trackway in southern and eastern England that runs from Norfolk to Wiltshire. It follows the chalk escarpment that includes the Berkshire Downs and Chiltern Hills. Background It is generally said to be, within ...

and the Roman-period Peddars Way.

Peddars Way

Peddars Way, an ancient

Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

, runs through the top end of the village and leads directly onto the

Norfolk Coast Path The Norfolk Coast Path is a long-distance footpath in Norfolk, running 83 miles (133.5 km) from Hunstanton to Hopton-on-Sea. It was opened in 1986 and covers the North Norfolk Coast AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). It links with ...

. After Fring, the national trail passes through the hamlet of Littleport, a small row of higgledy-piggledy cottages that now forms part of the main village. The route takes walkers past a local landmark, Magazine Cottage, built in the 17th century by the Le Strange family during the civil war as a

gunpowder magazine A gunpowder magazine is a magazine (building) designed to store the explosive gunpowder in wooden barrels for safety. Gunpowder, until superseded, was a universal explosive used in the military and for civil engineering: both applications requ ...

. Legend has it that a secret tunnel ran from the old armoury to the church in the heart of the village. Today this small part of Peddars Way derives its name from this historical building, with Magazine Wood and Magazine Farm just a few steps away. All these properties were once owned by William Newcombe-Baker, a local landowner whose estate covered much of the land round the village. He was a founder member of NORMAC, the Norfolk machinery body that did much in the 20th century to bring modern mechanisation to arable farming in East Anglia. Magazine Wood was rebuilt in 2000. From this high vantage point on Peddars Way, the sun can be seen setting over the sea – one of the few places this is possible on the east coast of Britain. Peddars Way passes Magazine Wood and crosses the disused

West Norfolk Junction Railway The West Norfolk Junction Railway was a standard gauge eighteen and a half-mile single-track railway running between Wells-next-the-Sea railway station and Heacham in the English county of Norfolk. It opened in 1866 and closed in 1953. At Well ...

Sedgeford railway station Sedgeford was a railway station which served the settlement of Sedgeford in Norfolk, England. Opened by the West Norfolk Junction Railway in 1866, passenger services ceased with the line in 1952. History The construction of the West Norfol ...

lay on the line between Wells and King's Lynn, but closed to passengers in 1952 and to goods in 1964. The parish church, Sedgeford St. Mary, is one of 124

round-tower church Round-tower churches are a type of church found mainly in England, mostly in East Anglia; of about 185 surviving examples in the country, 124 are in Norfolk, 38 in Suffolk, six in Essex, three in Sussex and two each in Cambridgeshire and Berkshi ...

es in Norfolk.

Archaeological project

The

Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project The Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (SHARP) is a long-term, multidisciplinary research project based in north-west Norfolk, United Kingdom. It is involved in the investigation of the local history and archaeology, with a st ...

(SHARP) was established in 1996 to reconstruct the story of human settlement in the parish. Initially, it focused on the

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- ...

cemetery located to the south of the modern village, but it is an ongoing project expanding to many other sites in the parish.

Sports

The village has an associated football team, Sedgeford FC.

Bibliography

Website 1643 Civil War in Lincolnshire and Sir Hamon LeStrange
*Neil Faulkner ''et al.'', eds, 2014, ''Digging Sedgeford: A People's Archaeology''. Poppyland Publishing. *Garry Rossin (2018) ''Sedgeford Aerodrome and the aerial conflict over North West Norfolk during the First World War''. Poppyland Publishing.

Notes

http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Norfolk/Sedgeford

External links

St Mary's on the European Round Tower Churches websitewww.sharp.org.uk Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research ProjectSedgeford Village Online website
{{authority control Villages in Norfolk King's Lynn and West Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk