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Great Hockham

Great Hockham is a village in the English county of Norfolk within the civil parish of Hockham.

Great Hockham lies north east of Thetford and south west from Norwich.

History

Great Hockham's name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and derives from the Old English for the larger Hocca's homestead or village.

In the Domesday Book, Hockham is listed as a settlement of 39 households in the hundred of Shropham. In 1086, the village was part of the East Anglian estates of Roger Bigod.

Hockham Hall was built in 1702 by Philip Ryley and was built on the old site of a medieval tithe barn.

There remains of the Royal Observer Corps Orlit post which has been vandalised since it was abandoned.

Geography

The A1075, between Thetford and Dereham, passes through the village.

Holy Trinity Church

Great Hockham's church is located just off Wretham Road and dates from the Fourteenth Century, having been Grade I listed since 1958. The church holds Sunday services once every six weeks

The church was restored in the 1950s and was once lavishly decorated, but these decorations were removed during the Reformation. Holy Trinity also features stained-glass depicting the Adoration of the Magi by Charles Eamer Kempe and Christ the Good Shepherd by E.R. Suffling.

Governance

Great Hockham is part of the electoral ward of All Saints & Wayland for local elections and is part of the district of Breckland.

The village's national constituency is Mid Norfolk which has been represented by the Conservative's George Freeman MP since 2010.

Notable residents

  • Christopher Bush- (1885-1973) crime novelist, born in Great Hockham.

War Memorial

Great Hockham War Memorial is a tall marble cross located inside Holy Trinity Churchyard. The memorial lists the following names for the First World War:

The following names were added after the Second World War:

References