Burnham Market

Burnham Market is an English village and civil parish near the north coast of Norfolk. Burnham Market is one of the Burnhams, a group of adjacent villages. It results from a merger of three original villages: Burnham Sutton, Burnham Ulph and Burnham Westgate.

Burnham Market

St Mary's parish church
Burnham Market
Location within Norfolk
Area18.43 km2 (7.12 sq mi)
Population877 (2011 Census)
• Density48/km2 (120/sq mi)
OS grid referenceTF834422
Civil parish
  • Burnham Market
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townKings Lynn
Postcode districtPE31
Dialling code01328
PoliceNorfolk
FireNorfolk
AmbulanceEast of England
UK Parliament
The village green
The Hoste Arms

Geography

Burnham Market is about 1 mile (1.6 km) inland, about 5 miles (8 km) west of Wells-next-the-Sea, 12 miles (19 km) north-east of Hunstanton and 10 miles (16 km) north of Fakenham. The smaller villages of Burnham Deepdale and Burnham Norton are within 2 miles (3 km) to the west and north of Burnham Market, whilst Burnham Overy and Burnham Thorpe are a similar distance to the east. North Creake is about 4 miles (6.4 km) to the south. The larger town of King's Lynn is 20 miles (32 km) to the south-west and the city of Norwich is 30 miles (48 km) to the south-east.[1]

The civil parish has an area of 18.43 km2 and in the 2001 census had a population of 948 in 496 households, decreasing to 877 at the 2011 Census.[2] For purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of King's Lynn and West Norfolk.[3]

Burnham Market in the district of King's Lynn and West Norfolk

Burnham Market is close to the mouth of the River Burn and the name Burnham probably derives from this. However another theory is that the town was a centre for the amber trade. As the name implies, historically Burnham had a market and was therefore considered a town, however that market was discontinued several years before 1854.[4] Today Burnham Market is more normally considered a village, albeit one slightly larger and considerably busier than its immediate neighbours.

A map of Burnham from 1946

The village was served until 1952 by a railway originally built as the West Norfolk Junction Railway. It connected Burnham Market to the east with Holkham and Wells-next-the-Sea, and to the west with several intermediate stations and a junction at Heacham with the line between Hunstanton and Kings Lynn. The station was located on the road to North Creake, south of the village centre. The main station building and platform still exist.

Governance

Burnham is the name of the electoral ward which covers all the Norfolk Burnhams and surrounding areas. The total population at the 2011 census was 1,714.[5]

St Henry Walpole Catholic Church, Burnham Market in the Diocese of East Anglia
Burnham Market

Burnham Westgate Hall

Burnham Westgate Hall is a Grade II* listed Georgian country house, built in 1783–1785 by Sir John Soane, for Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford.[6] It was a remodelling of the original Polstede Hall, which had been built in the 1750s by Matthew Brettingham for Pitt's father-in-law, Pinckney Wilkinson, MP for Old Sarum. In 1783, Wilkinson gave the house to his daughter, Anne, on her marriage to Pitt.

In 1808, the Hall was purchased by Sir Mordaunt Martin.

In 1933, the house passed to the Royal British Legion. After World War II, it was used as an old people's home until 1990. Recently it has been the home of Baroness Rawlings.[7]

Novelists

The novelist sisters Anne Elliot and Emma (writing as Margery Hollis) were living in Burnham Sutton by 1901. Anne Elliot died there in 1941.[8]

Churches

The village has two Church of England parish churches. The larger is St Mary's at the west end of the marketplace (Westgate church). All Saints' is at the eastern end of the village (Sutton-cum-Ulph, because it incorporated the parish and some of the stone of St. Ethelbert's at Burnham Sutton, some four hundred yards to the south, when Horatio Nelson's father Edmund was rector of both churches in the 1760s and 1770s). A third parish church near Burnham Market is St Margaret's. This is in the neighbouring parish of Burnham Norton. Its benefice was joined with St Mary's (Westgate) to form the new ecclesiastical parish of Burnham Market in 2012. The former churches, with the parishes of Burnham Overy and Burnham Thorpe (birthplace of Nelson), form the single benefice, the Burnhams Benefice.[9]

There are two other places of worship in the village: a Roman Catholic church dedicated to St Henry Walpole, and a Methodist church. The former Gospel Hall was put up for sale in 2015.

References
  1. Ordnance Survey (2002). OS Explorer Map 251 – Norfolk Coast Central. ISBN 0-319-21887-2.
  2. "Parish population 2011". Retrieved 26 August 2015.
  3. Office for National Statistics & Norfolk County Council (2001). Census population and household counts for unparished urban areas and all parishes. Retrieved 18 October 2005.
  4. Francis White (1854). Francis White's History, Gazetteer and Directory of Norfolk - Burnham Westgate (or Burnham Market). Retrieved 18 October 2005.
  5. "Burnham ward population 2011". Retrieved 27 August 2011.
  6. "Burnham Westgate Hall" (PDF).
  7. Churchill, Penny (2011). "An exceptional country estate in Norfolk". Country Life.
  8. Victorian Fiction Retrieved 14 May 2018.
  9. Burnhams Benefice Parish. Churches and Church Locations. Retrieved August 28, 2017
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