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Foxley Foxley is a very ancient village mentioned in the Domesday Book. The name is from old english fox-leah. Leah being a clearing in or around a wood. There
is an impressive moated site of a former Manor House,
a Medieval church and extensive natural woodland once a hunting ground
of kings. Today the village is cut in two by the modern highway between Norwich and Fakenham. Two flourishing industries exist here. A plant breeding company called Floranova and Davis Egg distributors. There are a group of holiday homes known as Moor Farm Stable Cottages and a man-made fishing lake.
Foxley Wood April
and May is the time to see the great swathes of Bluebell for which Foxley
Wood is famous. Painters and photographers have captured it, but you really
need to see it with your eyes to enjoy the scale of it. Clearly
visible from space, this is the largest remaining block of ancient woodland
in Norfolk. The
Doomesday Book noted that it was a large enough area for 300 swine. That is
said to be a way of measuring it. It is quite possible it was a hunting
ground of kings. In
the 20th century the demand for traditional coppiced wood and
bark declined and the area became neglected. In the 1960’s the Forestry
Commission took over and replaced large areas with conifers for pit props and
the paper industry. The
continuous shade provided by the commercially grown conifers inhibited the
wealth of ground flora and fauna that existed there – much of it quite rare.
Then the Forestry Commission let the shooting rights and a diligent
gamekeeper kept the public out – sometimes at gunpoint! Happily the Norfolk
Naturalists Trust was able to purchase the wood in 1988 and not only opened
this delightful area to the public but have done great work in felling the
conifers and returning the vast majority of the forest to its original state,
re-establishing coppicing management. The
wood was cut over the centuries to provide a continuous, renewable source of
rods, poles, brushwood and timber. In 1784 there is an entry in the accounts
of the Evans-Loombe estates: “Received of Thomas Bacon on 29th December
for barke out of Foxley Park £4-10s”. This
is the practise of cutting trees close to the ground in order to encourage
new shoots which spring up around the stumps and are harvested. The coppice
in Foxley is mainly hazel and ash with some field maple, sallow and
small-leave lime. In the past it has been used for fuel, wattle fences,
thatching and laths for building. Nowadays twelve foot lenghts are bundled
together as faggots and used to create river and sea defences. One
of the major features of Foxley Wood is the series of wide tracks, known as
rides, that criss-cross the Wood. These were developed to allow easy removal
of timber but now support a tremendous variety of flowers including various St John’s wort, orchids, stitchworts and bugle. Some of the rides are dominated by
drooping orange-pink flowers of water avens. And
what of the birdlife and animals? Well as you can imagine there is a wealth
of this too. Sparrowhawks and tawny owls breed in good numbers and all three
species of woodpecker are present. Young coppice supports garden warbler,
black cap and whitethroat. Good numbers of bank vole and wood mouse keep the
resident weasels, stoats and foxes well supplied. Roe, red and muntjac deer
visit the wood. Evidence of wild boar has been found and at least one
eye-witness report of a sighting in the vicinity. Foxley
Wood is a great treasure house of nature and we are very lucky to have it on
our doorstep – accessible for us to enjoy. It is open from 10am – 5pm every
day except Thursdays. No charge is made. SORRY NO DOGS. Much
of the above is taken from the leaflet Foxley Wood published
by The
Norfolk Wildlife Trust, Telephone
01603 625540 Fax
01603 598300 Email
admin@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk Moated
Sites From
the Reeve’s Tale – June 1998 The
Moats in Foxley are the site of a Manor House and farmstead
dating back to somewhere between 1100 and 1500. The Norfolk
Heritage Explorer says: “In 1305 during the 14th century
the manor of Bigod is recorded in documents. The site of this large manor may
have been identified in Foxley. A large rectangular medieval moat can be seen
on aerial photographs taken of the parish and it has been suggested to be the
site of Bigod’s manor.” Moats
were very common during that period. They were dug for a variety
of reasons. Defence
was one. Either defence from raiders or from foxes and wolves attacking
livestock. Another
was to make a firebreak and water supply – the buildings were
usually made of wood and close to woodland. A large open fire would burn in the main hall
and easily set the house on fire. Drainage
was another good reason, if the land got waterlogged, and another – for
keeping fish in to eat. At
a later date moats were dug in imitation of the
great castle moats just to enhance social standing and to show
off. The one at Oxborough Hall in West Norfolk is
a fine example of this. Foxley
Manor is recorded as being granted by Henry II (1154 – 89) to Sir
William de Munchensey. Bawdeswell and Sparham were part of the Manor. By
1700 it was in the hands of the Lombe family, whose descendants today
live in Marlingford Hall. At
the time of writing the moated site is owned by a farming company
called Albanwise Limited, based at Hill Farm, Barton Bendish in West Norfolk . The
writer does not know when the old Manor House disappeared. St
Thomas Church Foxley The
lower part of the Nave walls date from the late Saxon or early
Norman times; and in evidence can be seen the typical coursed flint work of
that period up to the sills of the windows on the South side; also rough
quoins of 11th/12th century work. In the perpendicular period the Nave
windows were much enlarged and the buttress added. The Tower was
built about 1380 in the style of the Decorated period, and contains a fine
ring of 6 bells, two of which are in need of repair. There are beautiful
square cut white flints on the parapet, with much decoration. The Chancel was
largely rebuilt about 1300, and the priest’s door is typical of this period:
inside can be found the initials of Louis Norgate the then Rector, who
restored it in 1848. The Porch was
added sometime between 1480 and 1510, and was intended for secular use;
it was poorly built, typical of the falling standard of that age. Its
windows were blocked in the 17th or 18th Century. A niche above the entrance
was presumably meant for a statue of St Thomas. The inner
door is a beauty, somewhere about 680 years old: its handmade key, no
doubt fashioned by a local smith, is enormous, fortunately far too big to
mislay! The
interior The pews here
illustrate the social gradations of a former age, with six box pews for the
farmers and their families at the front, dated about 1710, and benches behind
with poppy heads, drilled to carry pricket lights. These date from about
1610. There
are Maid’s seats and remains of others against the wall for the maidservants
of the small farmers or tradesmen. Such examples are rare. There
is a Regency Gallery which was added by local craftsmen to
accommodate the rising population of the village. The Reading
Desk dates from the time of Elizabeth 1 (1558-1603) and adjacent to it
is the pulpit which dates from Queen Anne (1702-1710), contemporary
with the box pews. The Parish Clerk used to sit in the pew next to the
Reading Desk, and the desk is in its original state. Behind
the pulpit have been found traces of an early 15th Century Chantry Chapel of
St Thomas a Becket. Here also is the former entrance to a Rood loft, filled
in to strengthen the chancel arch. There
are a few remaining traces of the 15th Century flooring in the nave in front
of the reading desk and a few pamments in the SE corner of the nave. The
Font is 15th Century and has on its rim the mark of hasps which kept
holy water locked in pre reformation days. The
Communion Rails with their pillars so close together must date
from the time of Charles I, when Archbishop Laud decreed that dogs must be
kept out of the Sanctuary! The
Chancel is now used for regular worship by the congregation each Sunday. The Chancel
Screen was sawn off in Edward VI ‘s reign, and then at Queen Elizabeth’s command was restored in 1558 by joining it with iron straps. The loft and rood
had gone. The
above text is copied directly from the leaflet “St Thomas Church, Foxley – A SHORT GUIDE” to be found in the church, and the original material is
acknowledged as being the work of Richard Butler-Stoney. The
Church bells restored in the year 2013 The
bells are back in the tower and named after the 6 Saints of St Thomas’
Church. We
had a very pleasant blessing service led by David Head, which many from the
local community attended. It was also pleasing to see the primary school
children from Bawdeswell there who had taken up hand bell ringing. They put
the name labels on the 6 bells. The bell names are Ambrose, Augustine,
Gregory, Jerome, Thomas the Apostle, and Thomas a Beckett, the martyr. We
managed to get 5 bells hoisted up in the tower that afternoon. It took three
weeks of hard labour to do the rest of the work. Today the bells are rung by
visiting bell ringers from across the county – the tenor having been silent
since 1952 the others pretty well since 1984. Foxley
Plane Crash The
always stressful and often tragic events and circumstances which surrounded
the 392 Group combat operations on a daily basis during the Second World War,
saw many individual fatalities in the planes of men coming home to base with
their crews; still others were lost during combat operational maneuvering
enroute, practice training missions or in accidents while performing aircraft
flight tests – all while still flying within friendly English air space and
not over enemy held areas. This
day would see a tragic airborne accident befall crews of the Group which
occurred on a local practice mission and involved a crew from the 579th and
576th Squadrons. Little
information is available from all records to this research effort on the
exact circumstances surrounding the mid-air collision of the two aircraft.
Through a detailed examination of different source materials, including crew
loading lists before and after this mishap as well as cemetery burial
listings for the 392nd, the following accounting of crew member fatalities
was judged conclusively to be the most accurate and correct assessment
regarding these two crew losses on this date. Deaths involved were eleven
crewmen, five on the 576th crew and six on the 579th’s, as tabulated below. This
aircrew was flying B-24H Model #41-28731, Call Letter “V”, no nickname of
record, which ship had completed seven combat missions up to this local
practice sortie. The plane suffered a mid-air collision with the 579th
aircraft while returning from a Group practice mission around 11.30 hours.
Four crew members managed to safely bail out of this stricken Liberator (and
would crew up to fly again later on other 392nd crews): 2/Lt. J.E. Walters;
Sgt. W.R. Blankham; Sgt. E. (NMI) Ellis; and Sgt. D.H. Schumaker. On burial
information, Lt. Joseph S. Iannotta is interred at CAMBRIDGE, England in Grave G-7-2 and was awarded an Air Medal but no Purple Heart is indicated. The interments
of the other deceased members is not known from the records. Lt. lannotta’s
home State was New York. Lt.
Fidel’s crew was flying B-24H Model #42-95092, Call Letter “Bar T” with no
nickname of record. This plane had completed a total of four combat
missions up to this accident. After the mid-air collision with the Reese
aircraft, it crashed and burned near the village of Foxley, Norfolk. Three crewmen survived this mishap and bailed out safely: 2/Lt.
Q.S. Fletcher, Sgt. S.J. Placht, and Sgt. RE. Zollinger. Two of the
fatalities are buried in the U.S National (overseas) Cemetery at CAMBRIDGE, England: Lt Paul M. Fidel in Grave F-3-26 and Sgt. Warren W. Causey in Grave
C-2-52. Lt. Fidel’s awards were one Air Medal, but no Purple Heart citation
is noted and Sgt. Causey’s citation also is an Air Medal with no indication
of a Purple Heart award. Lt. Fidel had a home State of record of California while Sgt. Causey’s was Indiana. More
B24 records can be found at www.b24.net A
note from the Editor The
Surveyor’s Land In
a previous issue of the Reeve’s Tale the story of Bawdeswell Heath was
related, its origin dating back to the Land Enclosure Acts at the beginning
of the 19th century. Likewise the Parish of Foxley was allocated a parcel of
land for the use of the people. John
Fletcher has contributed this account of: We
have a number of documents dating back to 1735 relating to our home, and we
noted references in some of them relating to “Surveyor’s land”. The
references were in the awards of land allocated under the “Act for Inclosing
Lands within the Parish of Foxley, in the County of Norfolk”, dated September
22nd 1815. There is a paragraph entitled “Allotments to the Surveyors of the
Highways”. This land was that now known as the “Surveyor’s Land” at the end
of the Street, Foxley where Themelthorpe Road starts. The
Commissioners appointed by the Act of Parliament were named John
Dugmore, William Unthank and William Withers, the Younger. They
organised the measurement and recording of the land claimed by various
landowners, copyholders, freeholders and tenants. They
also defined public roads, private roads, boundaries, public footpaths, the
public drains, fences, ditches and hedges. The land allocated to the
“Surveyors of the Highways” was two acres. It was bounded by land allotted to
Charles Leaman to the North; Sir John Lombe to the East and South (in part)
and the Themelthorpe Road to the West. It
was (quote) “set out as and for public Clay and Sand Pits and to the intent
that the same allotments shall forever hereafter be used by the owners and
occupiers of lands and estates within the said Parish Of Foxley, for the time
being and forever, in reasonable and proper manner, for the repair of houses,
outbuildings, fence walls and barn floors, in the said Parish”. The
concept of the use of this land has obviously changed since 1815. The
Parish Council were custodians on behalf of the village. Part of it was sold
off to Anglian Water for the sewerage pumping station in the 1980’s and the
remainder in the year 2000 to raise funds for the village. It has now
been cleared and two fishing lakes have been excavated as part of the
facilities for the Moor Farm holiday cottages. |
