South Acre 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 ...

. The village has almost disappeared, but the remnants are located about south-west of Castle Acre, north of the town of

Swaffham Swaffham () is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Breckland District and England, English county of Norfolk. It is situated east of King's Lynn and west of Norwich. The civil parish has an area of and in the U ...

, east of the town of

King's Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is north-east of Peterborough, north-north-east of Cambridg ...

and west of the city 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 ...

. The River Nar flows between South Acre and Castle Acre.Ordnance Survey (1999). ''OS Explorer Map 236 - King's Lynn, Downham Market & Swaffham''. . The villages name means 'cultivated land'. 'South' to distinguish from Castle Acre. In 1441 the village was the scene of the attempted murder of an important member of the local

gentry Gentry (from Old French , from ) are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. ''Gentry'', in its widest connotation, refers to people of good social position connected to Landed property, landed es ...

, Sir Geoffrey Harsyk. A gang of local

yeomen Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in mid-14th-century England. The 14th century witnessed ...

and labourers occupied the main road, preventing passage along it, singing "we are Robbynhodesmen, war war war". This was a direct reference to the legends of

Robin Hood Robin Hood is a legendary noble outlaw, heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature, theatre, and cinema. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions o ...

that were particularly popular in Norfolk in the fifteenth century, and, indeed, it is probable that events such as this fed directly into later versions of the tales. The civil parish has an area of and in the 2001 census had a population of 32 in 13 households, at the 2011 Census Narford was included and the population increased to 115 in 47 households. For the purposes of local government, the parish 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 county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

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 ...

.Office for National Statistics & Norfolk County Council (2001).
Census population and household counts for unparished urban areas and all parishes
''. Retrieved 2 December 2005.

Notes

External links

*
Information from Genuki Norfolk
on South Acre. *http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Norfolk/South%20Acre Villages in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk Breckland District {{Norfolk-geo-stub