Place:Wiggenhall St. Mary Magdalene, Norfolk, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Wiggenhall St. Mary Magdalen is a civil parish and village in the English county of Norfolk. It is 6 miles (9.7 km) south of the town of King's Lynn on the west bank of the River Great Ouse. It covers an area of 17.76 km2 (6.86 sq mi) and had a population of 729 in 304 households in the 2011 UK census. For the purposes of local government, it falls within the King's Lynn and West Norfolk District.

In the Domesday Book of 1086, it appears that all three [four?] of the Wiggenhall parishes were at that time a single parish named Wiggenhall, of modest size and sharing a water mill with Runcton Holme on the old Wiggenhall Eau (the watercourse which ran through the parish before the advent of the Great Ouse in the 13th century).

The earliest evidence of settlement is the parish church of St Mary Magdalen, which is situated in the very northeastern corner of the parish. Most of the early settlement appears to have occurred here, probably due to the presence of a levee along the western side of the River Great Ouse, made of silts deposited by a former watercourse, the Wiggenhall Eau.

The church itself is largely Perpendicular in style, but the tower may date from as early as the 13th century, which is corroborated by the entry in the Register of Crabhouse Priory which tells of the nuns taking refuge at the Church from a flood in the early 13th century. Today the church is almost entirely red brick, with a façade that is the result of a thoroughly 15th century rebuilding.

The Parish contains two centres of population: around the Parish Church in the North, and to the South of Crabhouse Priory in the far South, now known as Stowbridge, which also extends into neighbouring parishes and is redirected to Stow Bardolph.

John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, KG, Earl Marshal (c.1425 – 22 August 1485) (WR Person:John Howard (264)) was the grandson of Sir John Howard of Wiggenhall.

A tidal bore which travels up the Great Ouse which is the area's most significant topographical feature. Magdalen Gate railway station was the name of the station on the Great Eastern Railway.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Wiggenhall St. Mary Magdalene from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"WIGGENHALL-ST. MARY-MAGDALENE, a parish, with a village, in Downham [registration] district, Norfolk; on the river Ouse, at Watlington [railway] station, and 6 miles SSW of [King's] Lynn. Post town: [King's] Lynn. Acres: 4,248. Real property: £8,895. Population: 825. Houses: 181. The property is subdivided. About three-fourths of the area are fen, drained by a steam-engine of 40 horse-power. An Augustinian nunnery, a cell to Castle-Acre, was founded here in 1181. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Norwich. Value: £270. Patron: Rev. W. B. Dalby. The church is ancient. There are Baptist and Primitive Methodist chapels, and a national school."

Research Tips

• GENUKI provides a list of references for Wiggenhall St. Mary Magdalene. Some entries lead to free online transcriptions of registers and censuses.
• A map illustrating the individual parishes of Freebridge Marshland Hundred may be useful. The small areas defined by letters are a group of detached parts of parishes which were reorganized in 1935. They are specified in this 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.