Beachamwell is a village and civil parish in the Breckland district of Norfolk, England about south west of Swaffham and east of Downham Market. It has four ancient churches, two of them in ruins. The former parish of Shingham is now part of the parish.
The name as spelt is the official one, but the alternative Beechamwell is found in modern publications as well as in historical sources. The correct spelling was a source of dispute in the village, until a parish council meeting in 1977 decided the matter.
Geography
The village is at the northern extremity of the Breckland and so its soil is light and sandy, free-draining and easily losing its fertility.Mitchell, L: Slow Norfolk and Suffolk 2010 p. 167 This made traditional farming difficult, and so the north of the parish is occupied by Beachamwell Warren, once one of the most important mediaeval rabbit warrens in the Breckland. Some of the boundary earthworks can still be traced. However, the historical heathland here has mostly been lost, and the parish land use is now mostly either modern arable farming or conifer plantations, with a few semi-natural woodland areas – especially along a brook marking the southern boundary of the parish. The topography is flat.
The location is isolated, and the main access is a country lane running south-west of Swaffham, looping north-west to join the A1122 east of Fincham. The core of the village itself is south of this lane, around a rectangular village green, with the church of St Mary at the west end and a pub at the east end. The former post office is just beyond the church, at 24–25.
The village includes the deer park of Beachamwell Hall. The mansion was rebuilt in 1906 after a fire, but the original 18th-century stables, ice-house and ha-ha survive.
To the east of the village is the hamlet of Shingham, which used to be a separate parish and which retains its own church building, St Botolph's. The hamlet of Drymere is strung along the road to Swaffham.Ordnance Survey Explorer Map 236, 2015 It was created for forestry workers when the Warren was afforested. According to the 2011 census the village had a population then of 339, including Shingham.
History The parish has been the source of a rich collection of archaeological finds, mostly obtained by fieldwalking or metal-detecting. The light, easily worked soil was attractive to Neolithic farmers, and large numbers of worked flints have been recovered. A possible cursus exists just south-west of the All Saints church ruin.
A small menhir of uncertain date, called the Cowell Stone, marks the meeting point of the parishes of Beachamwell, Swaffham and Narborough. It has been moved a short distance from its original location, on a track leading north of the A1122 to Narford, and is no longer upright.
Numbers of Bronze Age artifacts have also been found, notably a copper alloy hammer near Lodge Farm. There are at least nine round barrows in the parish, and two of these are noted on the Ordnance Survey: South-east of Shingham, and at Hangour Hill on the A1122. The latter location had at least one other barrow, and could have been a cemetery. Iron Age pottery has been found in fieldwalking, also a possible chariot linchpin near the Roman road mentioned below.
Roman period The A1122 to the east of Fincham follows the course of a Roman road that connected the Fen Causeway with Venta Icenorum (the present Caistor St Edmund), and ran through Beachamwell Warren. Roman-era finds have been rich, but no remains of Roman buildings have been identified. A trove of four pewter dishes were found during ploughing at Shingham Farm to the west of Shingham Wood in 1968, and a very unusual T-shaped brooch decorated with red enamel in the same general area in 1995. Two coin hoards were found in the 19th century. A site near the village called Decoy Close revealed a Roman cemetery with five burials, and also a rich assemblage of finds from the Neolithic through all eras into the Mediaeval.
Saxon and medieval development The Devil's Dyke is a linear bank and ditch running in an almost straight line from Narborough to near Oxborough, parallel to the western boundary of the parish, and this is postulated as an early Saxon boundary marker. The date is not conclusive, however. The “Decoy Close” site mentioned above is postulated as an early Saxon burial ground owing to the richness of the metalwork finds here, but no burials have been found yet.
The church of St Mary is described as originally late Saxon, although the listed building description does not commit as to whether any of the surviving fabric is of this date.
The Domesday Book of 1086 listed three Saxon settlements in the present parish: Bicham (Beacham), Wella (Well) and Shingham. There was a church in Bicham, taken to be St Mary's. Wella had two mills and was around the later church of All Saints, which was not mentioned in Domesday – although a fragment of a Saxon stone cross was found incorporated into later fabric here. These two places were in the Hundred of Clackclose. Shingham was very small, with two households. Its settlement was in the Hundred of Clackclose, but part of the parish was in the Hundred of South Greenhow with the brook running through it being the boundary.
Beacham and Well consolidated to become Beachamwell when the settlements became contiguous in the early Middle Ages. Deserted medieval village earthworks around the All Saints church ruin, and in what is now Nut Wood, indicate that the resulting village was at least twice the size that it is now. There were three manors, called Well-Hall, Chervile’s and Ashfield and Joce’s; the latter two were named after families which had held them. Chervile's Manor included that part of Shingham in the Clackclose Hundred, and also had St Mary's Church.
All Saints’ church was built in the 12th century, as was Shingham church. However St John's seems to have been a later foundation, since the first rector (priest in charge) was recorded in 1304 and the surviving fabric is of that period. It was attached to Well-Hall Manor.
The farming of rabbits on an industrial scale at Beachamwell Warren was first recorded in about 1275, and continued in importance for five hundred years.
Early modern period At the Reformation, there were four territorial parishes in the present parish area: Beachamwell St Mary, Beachamwell St John, Beachamwell All Saints and Shingham. However, St John's church did not survive. It was still in use in 1535, but abandoned by 1552.Batcock, N: The Ruined and Disused Churches of Norfolk 1991 p. 52 Despite this, because the priest-in-charge was a rector, he had a guaranteed income from the property, so a rector were appointed to the ruined church until 1723. The post was a sinecure. In about 1750, the antiquary Francis Blomefield paid a visit, and found that some poor people were living in huts within the ruin.
All Saints’ church also seems to have fallen into decay, but it was restored in 1612 by Thomas Athow, the Lord of the manor of Well-Hall, and the family used it as a mausoleum. However, it was abandoned in 1688 when the roof collapsed. The problem allegedly arose when the Athow family sold the manor, for the new Lord declined to accept responsibility for the upkeep of the whole church (the Lord of the manor was responsible for the chancel only). The church was in ruins by 1721, and Blomefield was indignant about the dereliction when he visited around 1750.
The three manors were consolidated into one country estate by 1760, based on Beachamwell Hall, which was rebuilt and provided with an ornamental deer-park. The Warren was enclosed by Act of Parliament in 1777; although rabbits were still reared, it was recorded in 1785 that much of the Warren had been arable farmland for some time. The Beachamwell Estate owned almost all the land in the Beachamwell and Shingham parishes, in the form of a few large tenant farms (there was only one in Shingham, called Shingham Farm).
In 1765, the rector of St Mary's found two Nottingham alabaster relief sculptures under the floor of the church's chancel. Francis Blomefield saw these, and described them as painted and gilded. One depicted the Deposition from the Cross, and the other showed St Peter. These were probably from one or both of the two altars in the church in medieval times, and were hidden at the Reformation. Their present whereabouts seem to be unknown.
In 1685 a Huguenot family named Motteux had fled Rouen in France for the City of London, in response to the Edict of Fontainebleau of that year ending any toleration of Calvinism in France.Jones, C. Rachel: Sandringham, Past and Present 1888 p. 114 They did well (Peter Anthony Motteux was a noted playwright), and a descendant named John Motteux bought the Estate in 1780.Jones, C. Rachel: Sandringham, Past and Present 1888 p. 132 He was a keen gardener, and propagated a new variety of eating apple called Beachamwell Seedling.Hogg, R: The Apple and Its Varieties, 1859 p. 32 This still exists and is available (2021) as a heritage variety.
John died in 1793, and his son inherited who was also called John.
19th century Shingham church was united with St Mary's in 1800, becoming a chapel of ease.
John Motteux the younger was a beneficent landlord, and improved the village. The timber-framed cottages were replaced with brick ones, beginning in 1815 (which is why the domestic buildings in the village lack interest). In 1832 the south aisle of St Mary's church was extended by him, and given a new lead roof. In 1835 he provided a school, the village's first. He died in 1843, and his monument is in the church.
The village pub, called the Cooper's Arms, was first licensed in 1846.
In 1851 the Estate was sold to Joshua Fielden, a descendant of the parliamentarian John Fielden and a member of a family running a cotton spinning and weaving business as Fielden Brothers at Waterside Mill, Todmorden, Lancashire. The Estate was originally bought as an investment, but Joshua's son (also called Joshua) contracted an “unsuitable” marriage and was banished to here as the resident squire in 1875. He hated it so much that he drank himself to death in 1892, but his widow inherited, remarried and her descendants kept possession until 1966.
In 1871, the population of the three Beachamwell parishes was 376 and Shingham had 78. The village had a post office, a shop, a shoemaker, a resident surgeon, the pub and a smithy next door. The pub was a beerhouse (it didn't sell wine or spirits), and the publican was also the blacksmith.Kelly’s Post Office Directory of the Norfolk Counties, 1875 pp. 209, 440 The school was extended in 1875. Unusually, school dinners were provided at the pub until 1972 when the village hall took over as a venue.
In 1883, Shingham church's roof was reported as being in thatch over the nave, and slate over the chancel. Only the latter was in use as a mortuary chapel for the graveyard, but the former was derelict. Services had ceased, and the altar was moved to St Mary's.Kelly’s Post Office Directory of the Norfolk Counties, 1883 p. 491
A reading room was opened in a village cottage in 1891. A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was opened in 1892, on the lane to Shingham.
The Local Government Act 1894 created the civil parish and parish council of Beachamwell by merging the three ancient parishes, to be part of the Swaffham Rural District Council.
20th century In 1902 a fire completely destroyed the Hall, and this was rebuilt in 1906 in the Queen Anne style by the architects Wimperis and Best. No photograph of the old mansion has been traced, so it is not known if the rebuilding resembled the original edifice.
In 1911, the roofless nave of Shingham church was re-roofed in corrugated iron, subsequently replaced with copper sheeting. It was then used for services until 1941.Batcock, N: The Ruined and Disused Churches of Norfolk 1991 p. 45