Place:Heacham, Norfolk, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Heacham is an English village in the northwest of Norfolk overlooking The Wash, between King's Lynn, 14 miles (23 km) to the south, and Hunstanton, about 3 miles (4.8 km) to the north. It has been a seaside resort for a century and a half.

History

The name Hecham was noted as part of the Smithdon Hundred in the Domesday Book which was written around 1086 . Prior to the Norman Conquest of 1066, Heacham was controlled by two Saxons, Alnoth, and Toki the king's thegn, whose estates were based around a hall in Castle Acre. After the Norman Conquest, the lands passed to William de Warenne and his brother-in-law Frederick de Warenne, who was later killed by Hereward the Wake.

In 1085 the manor of Heacham was given by William de Warenne to a cell of Cluniac monks from the Priory of St Pancras of Lewes, to pray for the soul of his late wife Gundreda. After the dissolution in the late 1530s the manor passed to Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk.

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is the oldest surviving building in the village. It dates from 1230 and is Norman in style. In the cupola on the tower hangs a bell dating from about 1100, making it the oldest in East Anglia, and the seventh oldest in the country.

Heacham has links with Thomas Rolfe and his wife Pochahantas.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Heacham.

Research Tips

• GENUKI provides a list of references for Heacham. Some entries lead to free online transcriptions of registers and censuses.
• A map illustrating the individual parishes of Smithdon Hundred may be useful.
• 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.