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Swaffham (St. Peter and St. Paul)

SWAFFHAM (St. Peter and St. Paul), a market-town, a parish, and the head of a union, in the hundred of South Greenhoe, W. division of Norfolk, 28 miles (W. by N.) from Norwich, and 95 (N. N. E.) from London; containing 3358 inhabitants. This ancient town is situated on an eminence commanding an extensive view of the surrounding country, and is remarkable for the salubrity of its air, and the longevity of its inhabitants. It consists of four principal and several inferior streets, lighted with gas; the houses are in general well built, and are supplied with water from numerous wells. A book club is supported by the clergy and gentry in the town and neighbourhood, and a neat theatre has been erected; an elegant assembly-room, on the market-hill, has been repaired and modernised, at a considerable expense, and subscription assemblies are held occasionally. On the north-west side of the town is a fine heath, of some thousand acres, admirably adapted for the diversions of racing and coursing; a meeting for coursing, which is the parent society of others in the county, takes place on the Monday after the 3rd of November. A railway was completed in 1847 from Lynn, by Swaffham, to Dereham.

A charter for a market and two annual fairs was granted by King John to one of the earls of Richmond, who were anciently lords of the manor, and who had a prison in the town; the market is on Saturday, and fairs are held on May 12th, for sheep, and July 21st and November 3rd, for sheep and cattle. The market-place, a fine area surrounded by handsome buildings, contains a beautiful cross, erected in 1783 by Lord Oxford, and consisting of a circular dome, supported on eight pillars, and crowned with a figure of Ceres. The county magistrates hold petty-sessions on the first and last Saturdays in the month; the general quarter-sessions take place here, by adjournment from Norwich, and manorial courts leet and baron occur in April or May. The powers of the county debt-court of Swaffham, established in 1847, extend over the registration-district of Swaffham. This is the most central town in the western division of the county, and the election of the members for the division is held here. A shire-hall has been recently erected; and there is a house of correction for the several adjoining hundreds, built in the reign of Elizabeth. The New Bridewell was erected in 1787, and is adapted for more than fifty prisoners; attached is a chapel, of which the chaplain, who is elected by the magistrates, has a stipend of £200 per annum. A treadmill was erected in 1822, and a residence for the governor in 1825. The parish comprises 7563a. 3r. 28p., of which 4524 are arable, 2853 pasture, meadow, and heath, 55 woodland, and 131 in roads, buildings, &c.

The living is a vicarage, with the rectory of Threxton annexed, valued in the king's books at £14. 5. 10.; patron, the Bishop of Norwich; appropriators, the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. The great tithes of the parish have been commuted for £1125, and the vicarial for £533. 10.; the appropriate glebe contains 110 acres, and the vicarial 53. The church, which is approached by a fine avenue of lime-trees, is a splendid cruciform structure in the later English style, with a stately embattled tower crowned by turrets, and surmounted by a well-proportioned spire. The nave is separated from the aisles by lofty ranges of slender clustered columns sustaining the roof, which is richly ornamented with figures of angels, carved in chesnut-wood; there are several neat monuments, and in the north transept is an altar-tomb, with the recumbent effigy of John Botewright, D.D. In a library attached to the church, and which was principally the gift of the Spelman family, is a curious missal. The north aisle is commonly reported to have been built by John Chapman, a tinker of the town, concerning whom a curious monkish legend prevails; and various devices in different parts of the church seem to be rebuses on the name of Chapman. Here was anciently a free chapel, dedicated to St. Mary; and about half a mile distant, in a hamlet once called Guthlac's Stow, now Goodluck's Close, stood another, dedicated to St. Guthlac. In the town are places of worship for Baptists and Wesleyans; also a free school founded in 1724, by Nicholas Hamond, Esq., who bequeathed £500 for erecting a school-house, and £500 for the instruction of 20 boys. Aspal's manor, comprising 100 acres, with a right of common of 300 acres, was granted to the town by Edward VI., for the repair of the church, high roads, &c., and for the relief of the poor: the income is £160 per annum. Adjoining the churchyard is a large green croft, bequeathed by Dr. Botewright, as a place of exercise for the inhabitants, and on which were formerly butts for the practice of archery. The union of Swaffham comprises 33 parishes or places, and contains a population of 13,084. At a place called Priors Thornes, about a mile distant, was a cell or hermitage, for pilgrims on their way to the shrine of Walsingham. John de Swaffham, a man of great learning, raised to the see of Bangor by Pope Gregory II., was a native of the town.


Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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