West Somerton, Norfolk
Historical Description
Somerton, West, a parish in Norfolk, 8¾ miles NW by N of Yarmouth, and 1½ mile NE from Martham station on the Midland and Great Northern Joint railway. It has a post office under Yarmouth; money order and telegraph office, Martham. Acreage, 1208; population, 253. The manor belongs to the Cuddon-Fletcher family. Somerton Hall is pleasantly situated upon an eminence commanding good marine views. The celebrated Norfolk giant, Robert Hales, was born in this parish in 1820. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Norwich; net value, £120. The church is an ancient building of stone, with a thatched roof, in the Early English and Perpendicular styles, containing the remains of some mural paintings which are more than 600 years old.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Norfolk | |
Ecclesiastical parish | West Somerton St. Mary | |
Hundred | West Flegg |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
Ancestry.co.uk, in association with Norfolk Record Office, have images of the Parish Registers for Norfolk online.
Findmypast, in conjunction with Norfolk Record Office have the following parish records online for West Somerton:
Baptisms | Banns | Marriages | Burials |
---|---|---|---|
1736-1901 | 1736-1901 | 1737-1836 | 1736-1812 |
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for West Somerton from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Somerton, West (St. Mary))
Maps
Online maps of West Somerton are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Norfolk newspapers online:
- Norwich Mercury
- Norfolk Chronicle
- Diss Express
- Thetford & Watton Times and People's Weekly Journal
- Norfolk News
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitations of Norfolk 1563, 1589, and 1613 is available on the Heraldry page.