Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Whitlingham

  • Whitlingham – Name Origin

    Whitlingham – Name Origin

    Whilst on a roll checking the origins of place-names in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the village of Whitlingham is defined as:

    Whitlingham, Norfolk. [Wisinlingaham in Domesday Book, Wicthlingham in 1206, Withlingham in 1254]. The ham of Wihthelm’s people.

    ‘Ingas’ (or ing) is the Saxon word for a group of people, whilst ‘ham’ means farm, homestead or settlement. I’m not sure if I’m meant to know who Wihthelm was, but I don’t. Although he was probably quite important if he had a little collection of followers. It does though help date the settlement, now best known for its lake and sewage treatment works (these two are separate locations, they haven’t merged them), to at least the Saxon period.

  • Whitlingham – Trowse Newton Hall

    Whitlingham – Trowse Newton Hall

    The former entrance to Trowse Newton Hall, it’s in a beautiful location by Whitlingham Lake today, but it was previously in a more private area of land as the lake is a more recent man-made creation.

    The current hall was constructed in the mid-fifteenth century to be used as a country house by the priors of Norwich, but this replaced an earlier building. This previous structure had been visited by Edward III and his wife Philippa in 1335 and they arrived in a grand procession along the River Yare.

    The privilege of the priors was also used by the Deans of Norwich Cathedral following the reformation, but the property was let out to tenant farmers from the seventeenth century. The building was badly damaged following the Norwich food riots of 1766, caused by an increase in bread prices and a misplaced notion that bakers were making a fortune, and it was later mostly demolished in around 1860.