Place:Santon, Norfolk, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Santon is a depopulated village located near the Suffolk parish of Santon Downham in Norfolk, England. Moated earthworks and other remains of the medieval village are a scheduled monument.

The village church of All Saints' was rebuilt from ruins in the 17th century by Thomas Bancrofte, the sole parishioner at that time.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of "Santon, Norfolk" from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1871-72:

"DOWNHAM-SANTON, a parish in Thetford [registration] district, Suffolk; on the river Ouse and the Norfolk railway, at the boundary with Norfolk, 2¼ miles E of Brandon [railway] station. Post town, Brandon. Acres: 3,860. Real property: £939. Population: 81. Houses: 18. A sand-drift, in 1668, blowing hither from Lakeneath, overwhelmed upwards of 1,500 acres of the land, and nearly choked the river. Downham Hall is the seat of Lord William Powlett. The living is a [perpetual] curacy in the diocese of Ely. Value: £59. Patron: Dowager Duchess of Cleveland."

Santon was an ecclesiastical parish in the Grimshoe Hundred and became a civil parish in the Thetford Rural District in 1894. In 1935 it was abolished as a civil parish and was absorbed into the civil parish of Lynford. Since 1974 the area has been covered by the Breckland District of Norfolk, England. It is about 3 miles northwest of Thetford.

Santon is sometimes known as Santon House. This may refer to the manor on the opposite side of the river in the parish of Santon Downham, Suffolk. References are made to Santon House in GENUKI and in the FamilySearch Wiki. Santon House has been redirected here.

Research Tips

• GENUKI provides a list of references for Santon. Some entries lead to free online transcriptions of registers and censuses.
• GENUKI also supplies a map illustrating the individual parishes of Grimshoe Hundred. Parishes labelled with letters should be identifiable from the Ordnance Survey Map of 1900.
• GENUKI also advises that the following lists for Norfolk are to be found in FamilySearch:

• England, Norfolk, Parish Registers (County Record Office), 1510-1997
• England, Norfolk Archdeacon's Transcripts, 1600-1812
• England, Norfolk Bishop's Transcripts, 1685-1941
• England, Norfolk Marriage Bonds, 1557-1915
• England, Norfolk Non-conformist Records, 1613-1901

• Ancestry.co.uk has the following lists as of 2018 (UK or worldwide Ancestry membership or library access required). With the exception of the index to wills these files are browsible images of the original documents. The files are separated by type and broken down into time periods (i.e., "Baptism, Marriages, and Burials, 1535-1812" is more than one file). The general explanatory notes are worth reading for those unfamiliar with English parish records.

• Index to wills proved in the Consistory Court of Norwich : and now preserved in the District Probate Registry at Norwich
• Norfolk, England, Bishop's Transcripts, 1579-1935
• Norfolk, England, Church of England Baptism, Marriages, and Burials, 1535-1812
• Norfolk, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1915
• Norfolk, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1990
• Norfolk, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1940

• FindMyPast is another pay site with large collection of parish records. As of October 2018 they had 20 types of Norfolk records available to browse including Land Tax Records and Electoral Registers.