Бартон Бендиш: История и описание деревни в Норфолке

Village and a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk

Barton Bendish is a civil parish and small ancient village in the English county of Norfolk located 10 mile (16 km) south of King's Lynn and 90 mile (145 km) North East of London. It has two medieval parish churches, and once had three. The parish includes the old hamlet of Eastmoor, and covers The village has been settled since Neolithic times and was expanded during the Saxon period. Today the village has a population of 210 as recorded at the 2010 census and contains eight listed buildings, with the two medieval parishes churches being Grade I.

The civil parish has an area of , and in the 2011 census had a population of 210 in 96 households. Its territory comprises slightly rolling countryside and is defined by two small valleys, the brooks of which form the boundaries of the southern part of the parish. The western one is called the Lode Dyke, and the eastern one the Stringside Stream. They unite at the parish's southernmost tip, to flow into the River Wissey. The underlying geology is Chalk, but the two boundary valleys have brickearth from the Anglian glaciation. This has affected land use. The northern part of the parish is entirely dominated by arable farming with no woodland, except for the northernmost portion which takes in part of RAF Marham airfield. However, the brickearth areas to the south has some woodland the named woods are Birch Wood and Sluice Wood in the Stringside valley, and The Channels in the Lode Dyke valley. The latter is adjacent to Barton Bendish Fen, a former fenland common which has been drained but which is only under arable in its northern part. which are little more than a field apart. What is more remarkable is that up until 1787 the parish had three churches. All Saints' Church was pulled down in that year, with much of the material used to repair local roads and for repairing St Mary's Church.

Oddly, the present main built up area just described used to comprise two Siamese twin settlements which had their own churches and administration until the late 18th century. The churchyard of All Saints' Church continued in use for burials into the early 19th century after the church was demolished in 1789. The site of the church is on the right along Church Road from Fincham Road just before reaching St Andrew's Church, and is now occupied by a house called All Saints' House (the actual church was near the old school to the west). The present village layout provides no clue as to how the two settlements were distinguished on the ground.

The other major focus of the village is Barton Bendish St Mary, which is off to the west with its direct access from the main village by footpath. It has a classic village layout of its own, aligned north to south, comprising St Mary's Church at the north end which is accompanied by its rectory (rebuilt 1866 with extensive gardens, now called Score House) North east of the former is a deserted moated site, a Scheduled Monument and the location of the medieval manor of East Hall. Earthworks belonging to its deserted medieval settlement are at Abbey Farm, and are also a Scheduled monument. The only remnant of this former built up area is a dead end lane called Chapel Lane, leading to Abbey Farm (West Dereham Abbey had interests in the parish) and amounting to the village's third settlement focus. This settlement used to be called Cripple’s End.

Archaeological surveying of the parish by fieldwalking has been thorough, and has revealed that the territory has been well settled from Neolithic times. A Bronze Age hoard, now in the Ashmolean Museum, of eight bronze items was allegedly found in the parish at the turn of the 20th century, but the provenance is uncertain. Burials of this period have been found, and three ring ditches interpreted as ploughed out round barrows have been identified on aerial photographs. The outline of a Roman marching camp was identified on an aerial photograph, just north of The Channels wood and near one of the putative round barrows already mentioned.

Fieldwalking and archaeological excavations in the village have shown that the village was a dispersed settlement throughout the entire Anglo Saxon period. Early Saxon settlements have been identified at Hill Farm and north east of St Mary's Glebe Farm. Middle Saxon settlement was concentrated around the site of St Mary's Church, and in the Late Saxon period the west end of the present main village was a focus with settlement spreading eastwards. The name implies that the direction of Saxon settlement came from the west. The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, where the name is given as Bertuna in the Hundred of Clackclose. There were five manors. The main tenant of the village was William who held from Hermer de Ferrers, and other tenants were Reynald Fitzlvo and Ralph Baynard. Two churches are mentioned it is uncertain as to which church is missing, or why. The consensus is that all three were founded in late Saxon times. The locations of the manors of East Hall (the moated site north east of Avenue Farm), Herne Hall (north end of Eastmoor hamlet, east of lane) and Capel Hall (in the main village at The Paddocks, excavated 1988) are known. In the later Middle Ages, the Lowell family began the consolidation of land ownership in the parish by acquiring other manors.

Possession of the principal manor passed from the Lowells to the Gawdy family in 1579, and they kept it until 1677 when it passed to the Berney family who remained owners for almost 250 years. The tithes on farm income owing to the two working churches were commuted for new glebe land, which explains the names of St Andrew’s Glebe Farm and St Mary’s Glebe Farm. The ancient common land of Barton Bendish Fen was suppressed, and the poor of the parish were given the income from forty acres as compensation. The Poors Allotment survived as a charity which received rent from land to use as fuel subsidies for needy parishioners, until it was removed from the official list of the Charity Commission in 2017 owing to inactivity. In 1783, the village school was founded when one Richard Jones bequeathed an endowment for the purpose. Something went wrong and the capital was lost, but the school survived through voluntary subscription and it became part of the National School System by 1811. The village pub, the Spread Eagle, is first mentioned in 1794. As clergyman he held the benefices of Horningtoft and Barton Bendish St Mary's, and arranged the restoration of the latter church in 1789. He subsequently became rector of Fincham, where his name is better known.

In 1811, the parish population was 459. In 1865 St Mary's Church was restored, and in 1871 a bell cote was added to replace a Baroque bell turret provided in 1789. The formerly thatched roof was re done in slate. In 1874, a proper schoolhouse was built. In 1899, another Wesleyan Methodist chapel was opened at Eastmoor. The location was just north east of the wood called The Channels. The only surviving remnant is a polygonal brick clad concrete pillbox up a farm track west of Eastmoor Lane (first right from the village). In 1947, the Spread Eagle pub was bought by Truman's Brewery of London as a tied house. It was sold to the Brent Walker pubco in 1988. The two Methodist chapels in the parish, at Chapel Lane and Eastmoor, have closed down to become private houses. At the start of the century the Spread Eagle pub was sold as a free house, renamed the Berney Arms and became a high standard gastropub with accommodation. As such it was one of the three finalists in the Eastern Daily Press Norfolk Best Pub & Restaurant Food Awards in 2006. Later it was rebranded as The Berney. In the same year the population of the parish was 210, less than half of what it was two centuries before. In 2020, the pub closed down. It had been the last retail business in the village. The parliamentary constituency is South West Norfolk.

The nearest railway station since 1930 is at Downham Market for the Fen Line which runs between Cambridge and King's Lynn. The closest used to be at Stoke Ferry, but it closed in that year. There is no bus service.

The main social amenity is the Village Hall, run by an independent charity. Both remaining churches, St Andrew's and St Mary's are Grade I listed and so attract visitors. St Mary's Church is redundant and not used for regular worship (there are occasional liturgical services), and is now under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. A popular sport played in the village is bowls. The village bowling green was officially opened in 1952, although before that the game was played in front of Avenue House courtesy of Commander Mansfield. The green is situated on Fincham Road, opposite the junction with Church Road. The parish has two phone boxes, the one in the village being Grade II listed. The one at Eastmoor was adopted by the Parish Council around 1998 in order to prevent its removal. It is accompanied by an interesting Victorian letter box, set into the stone gable wall of a semi derelict outbuilding.

St Andrew's parish church is the only place of regular worship left in the parish. It occupies a prominent site in the centre of the village.

St Mary's Church is redundant, and is hidden away on a secluded site west of the main village. It is regularly open to visitors, and occasional liturgical services are held.

The third medieval parish church of the village was demolished in the 18th century, and no remains exist above ground. The location is in between the Old School and All Saints' House, nearer the former and with the nave just south of the car park there. In 1980 1 a thorough archaeological excavation was undertaken, which was the first of any ruined church in Norfolk. This revealed evidence of seven separate building campaigns for the church, as well as of Late Saxon settlement beforehand. A cemetery of this period pre dated the first church on the site, and forty nine graves of this were discovered. Phase 1, the first church on site, was a small edifice 42.5 feet (13 metres) long, consisting of a nave separated from a chancel by a chancel arch. There was an apse, all three elements being of the same width of 14.75 feet (4.5 metres). The existence of large external buttresses flanking the apse indicated a date after 1066, and the apse one before c. 1150. Phase 2 involved the lengthening of the nave westwards, or a transverse rectangular tower added (the evidence didn't allow a firm choice of hypotheses, but the former was preferred). The Norman doorway now at St Mary's was concluded to be of this phase, about 1175–95. Phase 3 saw the demolition of the apse. Phase 4 (early 14th century) had the nave further lengthened westwards, and the chancel arch replaced by a wooden screen. There was a tiled roof at this phase, as tile fragments were found. Phase 5 involved the building of a western tower, and the extension of the chancel. Phase 6 had the addition of a large chapel to the north side of the nave. Tiled chancel and chapel flooring survived from this phase, involving green glazed and cream slip tiles in no particular pattern and of three different sizes. Phase 7 involved three large buttresses supporting the nave wall west of this chapel. Francis Blomefield visited the church before 1752 (the year of his death), and left a brief description. The church roofing was in thatch, and the interior had a panelled ceiling vault. The north chapel had been demolished, but the piers separating it from the nave were left in the blocking wall. There was a rood screen. The tower had a brick parapet, a feature shared with St Andrew's across the road. Window had heraldic stained glass:

North window (a shield) gules, six escallops, argent, (heraldry of) Lord Scales; and, in the upper window, on the south side, (a shield) argent, on a bend, sable, three cross crosslets, fitchè of the first, (heraldry of) Caston. He also recorded two other shields, of Bardolf Earl of Clare and of Burgh Earl of Ulster, but these had been lost by his visit. There were three bells in the tower, which he described

On the tenor: Sit Nomen Domini Benedictum (May the name of the Lord be blessed), and two shields; on one shield, two keys in saltire, between a dolphin embowed, a wheatsheaf, a bell, and a lamp, probably to represent the four elements; on the other shield, a quadrangular cross florette. On the second bell are the same shields, and Sancta Catherina Ora Nobis (St Catherine, pray for us). On the treble, the same shields, and Vox Augustini sonet in Aure Dei (The voice of Augustine sounds in the ear of God). Surviving manuscript notes of the same period mention that the rood screen had defaced images of saints, there was an ambry in the east wall and a piscina in the chancel south wall. The east wall also had a heart shaped plaque or brass with an engraving of a chalice on it. The church fell into disrepair after Blomefield's visit. The Archdeacons’ Visitation Book of 1758 described the chancel as ruinous, and in 1764 it was demolished. In 1781 the roof had apparently collapsed, and the tower had fallen into ruin. Hence, by the time of the church's demolition it was already derelict. In 1787 the parishes of All Saints and St Mary at Barton Bendish were united as one benefice, allowing for the disposal of one of the two churches. It was decided to demolish All Saints in 1788, to use some of its materials in the repair of St Mary's and sell the rest with the three bells to raise money for the restoration, which was overseen by Robert Forby the rector. The corresponding south doorway, “another arch of equal antiquity but less ornamented” was taken away to be a garden folly at the rectory of St Mary's, where it was "erected a little to the south of the house". The churchyard remained in use into the 19th century, with the last reference to it being in 1845. It wasn't formally deconsecrated (that would have required exhumations), but it was conveniently “forgotten about” and quietly expropriated in the mid 19th century. The location was at TF 7265 0239, in the southern part of the scattered hamlet of Eastmoor. At the Reformation the chapel was desecrated and became a farmhouse. Blomefield in the 18th century noted that the east part of the extant house seemed to be part of the chapel, but the house there now (called the Chapel Barn) is modern and there is nothing to see.

Blomefield, writing in the 18th century, identified the above chapel with one dedicated to St John the Baptist in Marisco which existed by 1188. An undated charter deeded it to West Dereham Abbey. If this was the same building, he could not explain the change in dedication. However, there is an alternative tentative identification with a location marked “Chapel (site of)” on the 1885 Ordnance Survey, at TF 7170 0600 near Abbey Farm. The Abbey held the freehold of a property here as well as the manor of Eastmoor.

In 1875, a Wesleyan Methodist chapel was opened at Chapel Lane. It closed a century and a quarter later, and is now a private house. The single storey building next to it was Barton Bendish's first post office. The former chapel has a rectangular plan, including a slightly lower ancillary range attached to the back. The fabric is in yellow brick, with red brick quoins and window surrounds for the façade, and the roofs are in slate. There is an enclosed gabled external porch, a later addition which is very simple with its own slate roof. The façade behind has three large pointed windows, two tall ones flanking the porch and one shorter one above. A recessed date stone reading 1875 is in the gable. A pair of similar windows is in each side wall. The façade's corners have short stepped buttresses in stone, and the window arches are also in stone. The red brick quoins and window surrounds are laid to give a long and short pattern, like vertical crenelations. Interestingly, the buttresses are given pseudo quoins in the same style.

In 1899, a Wesleyan Methodist chapel was also opened at Eastmoor. This was closed a century later, and is now a private house called The Old Chapel. The fabric has been substantially altered. The chapel included a manse and schoolroom, and occupies a long rectangular plan set back from the road. The site slopes back, and the ancillary accommodation is under three separate roofs which step down in turn. The fabric is in yellow brick, and the roofs in grey slate. There is an enclosed gabled external front porch with its own slate roof, and a stone lintel over the door. In the façade are three tall rectangular strip windows. A pair of these flank the porch, and the third is above it. These windows are edged in red brick. The chapel side walls each have a pair of similar windows, and the right hand wall sports an external chimney. The third and fourth ranges behind each also have a chimney.