Diss Family History Group

FERSFIELD is a village and parish 4½ miles W.N.W. of Diss, 6½ miles from Eccles Road Station. It is in Guiltcross union, Diss county court district, hundred, and petty sessional division, Ipswich bankruptcy district, Redenhall rural deanery, and Norfolk archdeaconry. It had 288 inhabitants in 1881, living on 1,386 acres, and has a rateable value of £1,674 5s. The soil mostly belongs to the Duke of Norfolk, the lord of the manor (on which the fines are arbitrary), and partly to Miss Mortimer, and some smaller owners. The common was enclosed in 1799. The CHURCH (St. Andrew) comprises nave, chancel, south aisle and tower, and one bell, but there were formerly three; and contains effigies of two of its founders or rebuilders - Sir Robert and William du Bois, and marble tablets to the memory of Henry Blomefield, father of the antiquarian, and to the Rev. Samuel Carter who was for 33 years a former rector. The holy water stoup remains. The chancel was rebuilt in 1844. The parish registers date from 1565, and are in excellent preservation; they contain cuttings from Blomefield’s History of Norfolk, printed by himself, giving a list of former rectors of the parish, beginning with William Yngreth, de Debenham, March, 1312. There is an old silver chalice and a paten dating from the time of Queen Elizabeth. The rectory, valued in K.B. at £6 6s. 8d., is in the patronage and incumbency of the Rev. Arthur Braithwaite, who was inducted to the living in 1878, has a good residence, 60a. 2r. 21p. of glebe, and a yearly rent-charge of £375 awarded in 1838 in lieu of tithes. The Church Land, given by Jeffrey Ellingham in 1493, is 23a 0r. 2p. (let for £30) for the maintenance of the fabric. There are allotments yielding £2 5s. a. year. There is a conditional bequest recorded on the-tomb of Mrs. Elizabeth Barker, who died October 2,1751. Also Jeffrey Ellingham, who in 1493 bequeathed four marks and his tenement and lands to divers uses expressed in his will with this clause, “that if such uses should fail” as it has since happened “then the clear yearly profits of the same are to be laid out in repairing, beautifying, and adorning this parish church for ever.” The .Rev, Francis Blomefield, M.A., F.S.A., the great Norfolk historian, was born in this parish July 23, 1705, being the eldest son of Henry Blomefield, gentleman, whose family had long resided here. He entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1724, and took the degree of B.A. in 1727. In the latter year he was ordained deacon of the church of St. Giles’-in-the-Fields, London; and in the following year he was made a licensed preacher by Dr. Tanner, then Chancellor of Norwich. In 1729 he was instituted rector of Hargham, in Norfolk, on the presentation of Thomas Hare, Esq.; and in September of the same year he became rector of his native parish, his father having purchased the presentation of Lord Rochford, who was then patron of the advowson. He continued to hold both rectories till 1730, when he relinquished Hargham. Blomefield began to collect materials for his great work, which he modestly called “An Essay towards the Topographical History of the County of Norfolk,” as early as 1720, when he was but fifteen years of age, and most of his leisure time was spent in travelling to collect notes of churches, &c., and to test the accuracy of the information which he bad otherwise obtained. Finding that he could not get his work printed in the country, in consequence of the want of Greek, Hebrew, and other characters, he finally decided upon the singular and costly task of fitting up a printing-office in his own house, so that he could at all times have the supervision of the press, and see that no stolen copies of his book were issued. He commenced printing in February, 1736, and the first volume was completed December 25, 1739. The third volume was nearly finished when the industrious antiquary was snatched away by death, January 16, 1752, at the early age of 47 years. His unfinished work was completed by the Rev. Charles Parkin, rector of Oxburgh, who had rendered some assistance to Blomefield in the previous portion, and had him-self formed considerable collections. This gentleman finished the third volume, and added two more, which are, however, considered inferior to those by Blomefield. They were published by Mr. Whittingham, bookseller at Lynn, in 1769 and 1775; the whole forming five folio volumes, since reprinted by Mr. Wm. Miller, of London, in eleven volumes, royal octavo. A marble slab with an inscription covers the historian’s grave in the chancel of Fersfield Church, and the house in which he was born may still be seen in a remote part of the village; and though now humbly tenanted, and in picturesque decay, it retains the mullioned projecting windows, and some of the pargetting and other ornaments which we associate with the residence of a wealthy yeoman in the olden time.
The SCHOOL BOARD was formed December 1872. Mr. Isaac Vertigen, of New Buckenham, is clerk to the Board. The Board rents the School erected by the late rector, for which they pay a rental of £10 per annum.
POST OFFICE at Herbert A. Hall’s. Letters via Diss arrive at 8.40 a. m., despatched at 5.15 p.m. No Sunday post. Diss is the nearest Money Order and Telegraph Office.

Bean John, farmer, Wilney green
Birch Henry, cottager
Braithwaite Rev Arthur, rector, The Rectory
Brasnett Waiter Thomas, farmer, Fersfield Hall
Brewington Henry, cottager
Bullock Charles, farmer & shopkpr
Bunn Robert Newson, farmer; h Bressingbam
Crick Waiter, parish clerk
Eaton George, farmer
Fickling Samuel, farmer
Finbow John Charles, farmer
Garrood Fuller, farmer
Garrood Warren Daniel farmer
Greenwood Matthew Bennett, fmr
Hall Herbert Arthur, shoemaker and postmaster
Hardy Robert, farmer
Hawes Clhas. fmr; h, Bressngham
Hoskins Alfred, cottager
Hoskins Charles, farmer
Hoskins Charles, jun. farmer
Jessup George, carpenter, wheel-wright, blacksmith, & beerhouse
Levis William, farmer
Mortimer Miss Juliet Eliza, Algar house
Munford John, cottager
Newstead Frederick, cottager
Reynolds George, farm bailiff, Fersfield lodge
Robinson Caleb, beerhouse and fmr
Spurling Robert, farmer
Witham Richard, farmer
CARRIER Kenninghall to Diss passes through on Fridays