Cringleford Parish Council

CRINGLEFORD HISTORY

Cringleford lies some three miles south-west of Norwich, astride the road which runs from the city, south-west towards London. The name " Kringelforda " is thought to be of Scandinavian origin meaning, "Circle ford", also interpreted as, " The ford by the round hill ".

Cringleford Today

Cringleford is a thriving village with a population of over 2,000 people. It has an attractive setting with a wide range of properties including many large, individual properties set in sizeable plots. Many established trees contributes to a spacious and 'green' aspect. Located within the Conservation Area lies the Village Green with its village sign, village pump and seating. The parish church, water meadows and some listed buildings also form part of this area. Over the last 30 years the village has steadily expanded which has added to the popularity of the village. Further development is due to take place to the west of Colney Lane.

The village today boasts a wide range of facilities, with a Recreation Ground with sporting facilities, Pavilion, Scout hut and children's play-area, village hall with a bowling green (Patteson Parish Rooms and Club), church hall and Guide hut, a Post Office and shop, First and Middle School, a doctor's surgery and a small number of businesses. There are clubs and societies for every age group from Mums and Toddlers to Senior Social Club, the whole range of Guiding and Scouting groups, 2 thriving Women's Institutes, Horticultural Society, Historical Society, Flower Clubs, Amateur Dramatic Society, football, tennis, cricket, bowls and many more.

Cringleford is ideally situated, being close to Norwich, the University of East Anglia, Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital and Norwich Research Park and within easy reach of the A11, A47 and A140. With its village atmosphere and attractive green setting Cringleford is a very desirable place to live.

Before 1066

There were people living in the village before written records began; neolithic flints have been found and Bronze Age burial mounds or round barrows stand on the boundary of Cringleford in Cantley Wood.

Keswick Road is thought to be a Roman road leading from the Roman town of Caistor St. Edmund, westwards across the County. Roman coins and pottery have been found in the village.

By Saxon times Cringleford was a well ordered place with its parish boundaries settled and the land divided into estates. There was a simple church, which may have had a round tower like those at Colney, Intwood and Keswick. Early double splayed round headed windows and pre-conquest stones were discovered when the Church underwent a major restoration at the end of the nineteenth century and can be seen inside the Church today.

Medieval period

At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086 Cringleford was a Manor with two mills and a population of about 150 people. As well as the church there was a chapel, St.Albert's, which probably stood where Tungate Crescent is today. The two manors were called Heylesdon's Manor or Hellesdon's, which is now Cringleford Hall, and Berford's, which stood near the junction of Colney Lane and Newmarket Road. The village had open fields with strips, common land and grazing meadow.
It is believed that North and South aisles were added to the Church in the thirteenth century, these being demolished when the Church was extended and the tower added in at the fifteenth century. At the same time as the these later changes the original Saxon East window was replaced by an Early English two light window.

In 1239 Ranulph de Cringleford and William Malerbe of Colney had a disagreement over some pasture called " Sunderwodehowe " and fought an armed duel over it.

In 1249 the Great Hospital of Norwich was founded as a charitable institution by Bishop Suffield. At the same time the Bishop bought the advowson (the right to appoint the Rector) of Cringleford and other churches, to provide the residents of the Great Hospital with the tithes of corn and other produce.
The Great Hospital acquired the manor of Heylsdons in 1461 and from then operated all the land in Cringleford as one manor.

Tudor Period

This is probably the most interesting time in the history of the village.
A stone bridge was built to replace the wooden one which had been swept away in a flood in 1519. The Church suffered at the Reformation when the rood screen was removed and the stairs to the rood loft were blocked up. St. Albert's chapel became disused and disappeared.

In 1570 George Redman, A Norwich merchant grocer lived in the manor near Colney Lane, which he had leased from the Great Hospital. He spoke out in Norwich against the "Strangers" in the City. These were the Flemish and Dutch weavers who had been invited to Norwich to pass on their skills. He called for the immigrants to be sent home as he said they were taking the jobs and livelihood of the citizens of Norwich. He said that if they were not sent home he would "string up the Sheriff" and "levy a force".

He was joined by John Appleyard, Sheriff of Norwich, John of Throgmorton and Thomas Brooke and they formed two groups, George Redman raising a force in Cringleford, and the other force being levied in Harleston where they hoped to attract recruits at the fair. A small force was mustered here in the village but the few people who were recruited in Harleston were easily overcome and arrested for high treason. Appleyard managed to talk himself out of it but the other conspirators were executed.

Since he had been executed for high treason George Redman's Estates were confiscated and the rents of the whole village passed to the Crown. Thus the Mayor and Corporation of Norwich as Trustees of the Great Hospital were deprived of their rents.

Later in the year Cringleford was almost totally destroyed by fire, only the Church and the priest's house are supposed to have survived because they were built of stone. Even Cringleford Hall was reported to be damaged in the fire, although it stood well away from the other houses in the village, which were along the main street from the bridge to the village green.

However it was said that all the inhabitants had moved elsewhere and the farm land was left uncultivated. As there were no more rents forthcoming, the Crown lost interest in a village which was "totally laid waste" and an Act of Parliament was passed in 1580 which allowed the Great Hospital to buy all the land and re-sell it to four Norwich businessmen, two brothers, Christopher and Thomas Layer, Richard Bate and John Balleston. The last of these bought some barren land in the vicinity of what is now Newfound Farm on Colney Lane, where clay, suitable for pottery making had been "new - found". Production of pottery took place on the site until the early seventeenth century. It was a coarse type of earthenware with a green or brown glaze.

The village was rebuilt and because of an old map of 1571 drawn by John Goodwin, surveyor to the City, we know the names and positions of the houses. We also have the exact measurements of the houses and all the associated outbuildings from the sale following the Act of Parliament in 1580.

The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

In the time of Charles II, the Church was restored and in the eighteenth century a number of buildings in Cringleford were rebuilt or extended, reflecting the prosperity of Norwich and Norfolk at that time. The village had a public house, "The George", which had a Dutch gable added to it in about 1700, and was modernised in Georgian times. This house is now called "Ford End" and is opposite the churchyard.

Cringleford House which had been known as "Flotmans" had the middle portion rebuilt in the eighteenth century by Thrower Buckle and on the opposite corner of Colney Lane "Hill Grove" was built by William Creasey Ewing.

Cringleford Hall was modernised and Meadow Farm was built to remove farming from the vicinity of the Hall. At that time it was known as "Quebec Farm", and then "America Farm", names often given to a outlying farms. The Mill House was rebuilt in 1795 by Laurence Candler the miller.

The Norwich to Thetford Turnpike Trust had been formed to improve the road for travellers and this was paid for by tolls. The toll gate on the Cringleford to Hethersett section of the road was placed on Cringleford Bridge which had been widened by 6 ft earlier in the century but was still narrow. The first mail coach service from London to Norfolk began in 1784.

The Nineteenth Century

The road by the Church was widened by thirteen feet as the mail coaches had difficulty negotiating the bends there. In 1845 the Norwich to Newmarket mail coach leaving Norwich overturned on the bridge, but luckily there were only a minor injuries. A newspaper report at the time called for, "a broad level iron bridge to be erected instead", because of the number of accidents which took place. However we still have the same bridge today.
The Turnpike was very dusty in summer and a five wells were sunk at equal distances for watering the road. One of the iron pumps was moved from its original site next to the A11 just outside the school fence in the 1970s when the road was widened, and it now stands on the village green.

The coming of the Norwich to Brandon railway in 1845 which runs alongside the boundary of Cringleford with Intwood and Keswick saw a decline in the amount of tolls gathered by the tollkeeper, and In 1870 the Turnpike Trust was wound up.

A national school was built in a 1858 on the site of the old village pound, which was the place where stray animals were penned. It cost Ł700 for the school and the schoolhouse, and it was for 112 children.

Some large houses were built by wealthy Norwich businessmen: Frederick Harmer, a Norwich clothing manufacturer, built Oaklands in Colney Lane, Mark Lemmon built Hill House, also in Colney Lane, and the Pattesons from the brewing family added the wings to Cringleford House. In 1890 Edward Taylor set up a business in the village as a builder, wheelwright, timber merchant and undertaker.

The Twentieth Century

At the turn of the century the south aisle of the Church was added and the Church was thoroughly restored by the vicar, The Rev. T.S. Cogswell. The vestry was added in 1926.

The Patteson Club was given to the village as a reading room and working man's club in 1911 by Mrs Isabella Patteson, and this was the social centre of the village until the Church Hall was built in 1952.

The bridge was in the news again In 1901 when a traction engine travelling from Eaton struck the parapet and toppled over into the river killing both the driver and the firemen.

There was a fire at the mill in 1916 and the three-storey brick and timber building was completely destroyed. Only the Mill House and the sluice gates remain.

Taylor's business continued to flourish and it became a high class joinery manufacturer and coach builder as well. The chassis were obtained from Bristol and the wooden coach bodies were added in Cringleford. Taylors also ran the garage, which stood just below the Church.

The period after the first World War saw the beginning of much house building, with houses and bungalows in Intwood Road, Oakfields Road, Keswick Road and some in Colney Lane.

A Post Office was opened in 1929 by Mrs Luck, in a wooden hut at the bottom of Intwood Road near The Loke. In the Second World War Mr and Mrs Sparrow opened a shop in the front room of their bungalow in Intwood Road, and this is where the post office and shop still are today

The village continue to grow in the 1930s when the Tudor Hill estate was begun in Colney Lane by Archie Rice, and the mock Tudor houses in the lower part of Keswick Road and Keswick Close followed.
During the Second World War Cringleford had a Home Guard Company and a National Fire Service Station which was on the village green. During the air raids on Norwich in 1942 many people were evacuated and housed in the Patteson Club or in huts near the Round House. It was to deal with such emergencies that the Maycrete Hall (now demolished) was erected next to Pond Farm. Later this was used as a village hall.
The 1950s and 60s saw further expansion and as one result the school had extensions added in 1970 and 1974 to cope with growing numbers of children. The playing field given to the village in 1935 saw more facilities added to it, football pitches, a cricket square and tennis courts. The wooden pavilion opened in 1968 was extended in 1992.

The village bypass in 1975 included the construction of a new bridge, taking Colney Lane over the bypass, and meant that some properties were demolished, and Hill Grove lost most of its land. The Norwich Southern Bypass was built in 1992 on the village boundary with Hethersett and Colney.

Roger Bellinger
-for Cringleford Historical Society
7.10.2002