The Loddon Parish Study Archaeological and Desk-top Research
Loddon Parish Study 2012 - 2016
In 1990 Alan Davison, a noted historian, carried out a study of the three Parishes of Hales, Heckingham and Loddon. This exercise combined archival research with extensive field walking of the arable land available. Field
walking involves walking, looking, picking up and recording anything
made (or worked) by man. This is mainly pot, building materials,
metalwork, coins and worked flint.
The results showed that the area has been settled by man for not hundreds but thousands of years. However,
for obvious reasons, it was not possible to field-walk the built up
area of Loddon itself, so the results here were a bit thin.
Loddon and District Local History Group, led by David & Chris Crease, with the backing of Norfolk County Council (in the guise of Richard Hoggett & Chris Kolonko), aimed to fill in some of these gaps. During the summer of 2012 we initiated: archival research and archaeological test pit sampling throughout the Loddon Street area. Volunteers
started to look at the wills proved for residents of the parish,
Churchwarden's Accounts, the Overseer's Accounts, Census records, and
deeds of houses loaned by their owners.
Following
on from this initial research the Group bid for a grant from the
National Lottery, Heritage Lottery Fund. We were successful and had
£9,000 to be spent by the end of 2016.
The Study in earnest
The group conducted a Parish
Study, supported by Lottery Grant funding, which ran from 2013 until 2016.
We located the wills of Loddon residents proved between 1800 and 1858, these were transcribed by a team of volunteers. The book of the transcripts may be viewed here:
