Thursford is a village and

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 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 ...

, eastern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. The village is 16.3 miles southwest of

Cromer Cromer ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish on the north coast of the English county of Norfolk. It is north of Norwich, north-northeast of London and east of Sheringham on the North Sea coastline. The local government authorities are N ...

, 24.5 miles northwest 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 121 miles north-east 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 ...

. The village lies 6.9 miles northwest of the nearby town of

Fakenham Fakenham is a market town and civil parish in Norfolk, England. It is situated on the River Wensum, about north west of Norwich. The town is the junction of several local roads, including the A148 from King's Lynn to Cromer, the A1067 to Norwi ...

. The nearest railway station is at

Sheringham Sheringham (; population 7,367) is an English seaside town within the county of Norfolk, United Kingdom.Ordnance Survey (2002). ''OS Explorer Map 252 - Norfolk Coast East''. . The motto of the town, granted in 1953 to the Sheringham Urban Dist ...

for the

Bittern Line The Bittern Line is a railway branch line in Norfolk, England, that links to . It passes through the Broads on its route to an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the north Norfolk coast. It is named after the bittern, a rare bird found in t ...

which runs between

, Cromer and Norwich. The nearest airport is

Norwich International Airport Norwich Airport is an international airport in Hellesdon, Norfolk, England, north of Norwich. In 2017, Norwich Airport was the 28th busiest airport in the UK and busiest in the East Anglia region. Norwich Airport has a CAA Public Use Ae ...

. The village once had its own

Thursford railway station Thursford railway station was a station in Norfolk, England on the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway line between Melton Constable and South Lynn. It was closed in 1959 along with the rest of the line. It served the settlement of Thursfor ...

which is now closed. It is a proposed stop on the

Norfolk Orbital Railway The Norfolk Orbital Railway — as the Holt, Melton Constable and Fakenham Railway Company — is a proposed rail project in Norfolk, England, which is proposed to look at bringing a new rail connection to North and Mid Norfolk. The proposed ...

. The villages name means '

Giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: '' gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...

ford' or ' demon ford'. Thursford parish church is dedicated to St Andrew and has some fine examples of Victorian stained glass windows.Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East, by

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, '' The Buildings of England'' ...

and Bill Wilson The church was rebuilt in the early 1860s with money given by the Chadd family who lived in the nearby Thursford Hall.

Thursford Collection

Thursford is the home of the Thursford Collection, which is an assortment of

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be ...

s and

fairground organ A fairground organ (french: limonaire) is a French pneumatic musical organ covering the wind and percussive sections of an orchestra. Originated in Paris, France, it was designed for use in commercial Funfair, fairground settings to provide lo ...

s housed in a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and th ...

. The collection was founded by local man, the late George Cushing, and what began as a hobby turned into one of the world's most important steam and fairground museums. The collection includes a Mighty

Wurlitzer The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...

theatre organ, which is the fourth-largest in Europe and has a total of 1,339 pipes. There is also a 19th-century gondola

roundabout A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.''The New Shorter Oxford E ...

which was built in the Norfolk factory of Frederick Savage. The ride is decorated with carved heads depicting

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...

and her family, including the German

Kaiser Wilhelm II Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (german: Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918. Despite strengthening the German Emp ...

. The collection and museum is also famous for its popular summer and winter musical shows. The annual

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

"Spectaculars" attract coachloads of devotees from around the country and must be booked months in advance. One of the organs in the collection, a Wellershaus, was seen and heard in the ''

Dad's Army ''Dad's Army'' is a British television British sitcom, sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard (United Kingdom), Home Guard during the World War II, Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft (TV producer), David Crof ...

'' episode

Everybody's Trucking "Everybody's Trucking" is the first episode of the seventh series of the British television sitcom ''Dad's Army''. It was originally transmitted on 15 November 1974. Synopsis Mainwaring's platoon have to signpost the route for a military convoy ...

, which originally aired on 15 November 1974.

Governance & religion

For local government purposes, Thursford civil parish falls under the North Norfolk District Council ward of Priory, whose present district councillor is Richard Kershaw of the Liberal Democrats, and the Norfolk County Council division of Melton Constable, whose present county councillor is Steffan Aquarone, also of the Liberal Democrats. In the UK Parliament, it falls under the Broadland parliamentary constituency; before this it was for many years in the North Norfolk constituency until boundary changes in 2010. The MP since 2019 is Jerome Mayhew of the Conservative Party. In the Church of England, the ecclesiastical parish of Thursford falls under the province of Canterbury, the diocese of Norwich, the archdeaconry of Lynn, and the deanery of Burnham and Walsingham.

References

External links

Villages in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk North Norfolk {{Norfolk-geo-stub