Trimingham is a coastal village and a civil parish in the
North Norfolk
North Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Cromer. The population at the 2011 Census was 101,149.
History
The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972. It was a ...
district of
Norfolk, England. The village is north of
North Walsham, east of
Cromer, north of the city and
county town
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a county town is the most important town or city in a county. It is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county and the place where the county's members of Parliament are elect ...
of
Norwich, and is on the
B1159 coastal road between Cromer and
Mundesley.
The villages name means 'Homestead/village of Trymma's people'.
Parish church

Trimingham parish church is
St John the Baptist's Head. This dedication dates to the
medieval period, when a life size
alabaster head of the saint was kept at the church. St John's shrine altar was visited by
pilgrims who came to the church rather than make the journey to
Amiens Cathedral, where a relic, said to be the real head of John the Baptist, was kept. The alabaster head did not survive and although it is unknown exactly what happened to it, it has been suggested that it was probably destroyed by
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
reformers
A reformer is someone who works for reform.
Reformer may also refer to:
*Catalytic reformer, in an oil refinery
*Methane reformer, producing hydrogen
* Steam reformer
*Hydrogen reformer, extracting hydrogen
*Methanol reformer, producing hydrogen f ...
as a result of the 1538
Injunction
An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in pa ...
against images during the reign of
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
. Another theory is that the head was destroyed as a result of a further injunction which was rigorously imposed in 1547, during the early weeks of the reign of
Edward VI. Today an alabaster head survives in the
Victoria and Albert Museum and it is thought that the head at Trimingham was exactly like the head in the museum collection. The village hall is called 'pilgrim shelter' as a reminder of Trimingham's past as a site of pilgrimage.
The church has a short tower which is thought to be unfinished. It has heavy
buttresses on the west elevation which suggest that a fault in the construction of the church may well have been the reasoning for the unfinished tower. The nave to the east cuts around the buttress to embrace it. This peculiarity may be partly the result of a restoration by Thomas Jekyll in the 1850s.
Pevsner states in his survey book, that Thomas Jekyll completely rebuilt the
nave of which the most notable feature is the way that the tower buttresses on the east side project into the nave. The church's
rood screen
The rood screen (also choir screen, chancel screen, or jubé) is a common feature in late medieval church architecture. It is typically an ornate partition between the chancel and nave, of more or less open tracery constructed of wood, stone, or ...
has four figures on either side of the entrance to the chancel:
St Edmund Saint Edmund may refer to:
* Saint Edmund the Martyr (d. 869), king of East Anglia who was venerated as a martyr saint soon after his death at the hands of Vikings
* Saint Edmund Arrowsmith (1585–1628), Jesuit, one of the Forty Martyrs of England ...
with his arrow,
St Clare with her book and monstrance,
St Clement with his anchor and crozier, and
St James Saint James or St. James may refer to:
People Saints
*James, brother of Jesus (died 62 or 69), also known as James the Just
*James the Great (died 44), Apostle, also known as James, son of Zebedee, or Saint James the Greater
**Saint James Matamoro ...
in his pilgrim's robes. On the south side are St Petronella with her book and keys,
St Cecilia
Saint Cecilia ( la, Sancta Caecilia), also spelled Cecelia, was a Roman virgin martyr and is venerated in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran churches, such as the Church of Sweden. She became the patroness of music and musicians, i ...
with her garland of flowers,
St Barbara
Saint Barbara ( grc, Ἁγία Βαρβάρα; cop, Ϯⲁⲅⲓⲁ Ⲃⲁⲣⲃⲁⲣⲁ; ; ), known in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Great Martyr Barbara, was an early Christian Lebanese and Greek saint and martyr. Accounts place her in ...
with her tower, and St Jeron with his hawk. The east window of the church is credited to H Wilkinson and dates from 1925. the window depicts 'Christ in Majesty' flanked by
St Michael and
St Gabriel, with the symbols of the four Evangelists surrounding them.
Trimingham "golf ball"

At Trimingham is
air defence radar station
RAF Trimingham, a satellite station of
RAF Neatishead, which has a structure shaped like a giant golf ball and is on the edge of the cliff on the coastal road. Having previously denied problems, the
Ministry of Defence
{{unsourced, date=February 2021
A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...
said, in November 2006, that it would consider claims for compensation after an inquiry found the
Type 93 radar
Type may refer to:
Science and technology Computing
* Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc.
* Data type, collection of values used for computations.
* File type
* TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file.
* Ty ...
spinning inside the dome was ''"out of alignment"''. The MoD stated that the radar had been out of alignment between November 2005 and February 2006, causing car engines and lights to cut out, and speedometer dials to swing up to 150 mph as motorists drove past. A local garage owner who ran the nearest garage at
Mundesley, said he had dealt with 30 calls over a couple of months.
Trimingham beach
Trimingham has a beach that is used by
surfers
Surfing is a surface water sport in which an individual, a surfer (or two in tandem surfing), uses a board to ride on the forward section, or face, of a moving wave of water, which usually carries the surfer towards the shore. Waves suitable ...
,
jet ski
Jet Ski is the brand name of a personal watercraft (PWC) manufactured by Kawasaki, a Japanese company. The term is often used generically to refer to any type of personal watercraft used mainly for recreation, and it is also used as a verb to ...
ers, dog walkers and night-fishermen. It is reached by a steep one-vehicle only road accessed along a lane just past the building that used to be the Ingleside
public house
A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...
, now a private residence.
The
cliff
In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on ...
face at Trimingham has the youngest
chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Cha ...
in the United Kingdom, contains
shells,
bivalves
Bivalvia (), in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of marine and freshwater molluscs that have laterally compressed bodies enclosed by a shell consisting of two hinged parts. As a group, biv ...
,
crinoids
Crinoids are marine animals that make up the class Crinoidea. Crinoids that are attached to the sea bottom by a stalk in their adult form are commonly called sea lilies, while the unstalked forms are called feather stars or comatulids, which ar ...
and
oysters
Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not al ...
, and is subject
coastal erosion
Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landwa ...
.
[ Map & Address for Trimingham Beach ]
Transport
The nearest railway station is at
Gunton 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
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 ...
, Cromer and Norwich. The nearest airport is at
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 ...
.
Trimingham was once served by
Trimingham railway station
Trimingham is a coastal village and a civil parish in the North Norfolk district of Norfolk, England. The village is north of North Walsham, east of Cromer, north of the city and county town of Norwich, and is on the B1159 coastal road bet ...
on the
Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway
The Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway (NSJR) was a British joint railway company.
The NSJR was owned by the Great Eastern Railway (GER) and the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway (MGNJ) and consisted of two distinct sections: a line between ...
between
Cromer and
North Walsham. It closed in 1953.
Sport
The village has a football team called the Trimingham Pilgrims, also known as "The Trimms".
References
External links
{{authority control
Villages in Norfolk
Populated coastal places in Norfolk
Civil parishes in Norfolk
North Norfolk
Beaches of Norfolk