Heydon, Norfolk Genealogy

Guide to Heydon, Norfolk ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
HEYDON (St. Peter), a parish, in the union of Aylsham, hundred of South Erpingham, E. division of Norfolk, 3½ miles (N. N. E.) from Reepham.

Heydon St Peter and St Paul is an an Ancient Parish in the diocese of Norwich.

The church is noted for the mediaeval wall paintings which were rediscovered in 1970.

The village is listed in the Domesday Book as "High-Down", and was home to a weekly market. Heydon also serves Irmingland parish which is also known as Ermingland.

Erasmus Earle, one of the most noted lawyers of his time, was lord of the manor in the early 17th century. The 19th century lord was William Earle Lytton Bulwer (1799–1877), elder brother of the author Edward Bulwer Lytton. The village is still owned by the Bulwer Long family, one of only around a dozen English villages that are entirely privately owned.

Heydon became Norfolk's first conservation area in 1971 and has won its Best Kept Village on two occasions. The village retains an old-fashioned character with no new buildings having been added since the Queen Victoria commemorative well was built in 1887.

The village is home to one pub, the Earle's Arms, and there is an Elizabethan hall, built in 1582 by Henry Dynne and extended in the late 18th and early 19th century.

Heydon, Norfolk, is an English village in the county of Norfolk and district of Broadland.

Heydon is about five miles north of Reepham, and has no through road, making it isolated except from the south. It consists of a large green, surrounded by picturesque houses and cottages.

Heydon is often used in television and film productions. The village was used as the setting for the Anglia Television soap opera Weaver's Green. Films partly shot in the village include The Go Between (1970), Riders (1993), Hitler's Britain (2002), Vanity Fair, The Woman in White, The Moonstone, The Peppermint Pig, and A Cock and Bull Story (2005).

Find Neighboring Parishes
Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
 * Type the name of the parish in the search bar
 * Click on the location pin on the map
 * Choose Options from the pop up box
 * Click "List Contiguous Parishes" to find the neighboring parishes

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.


 * 1837-1938 Aylsham
 * 1939-1974 Norwich Outer
 * Norwich


 * Norfolk Record Office

Church Records
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Due to the increasing access of online records: Hover over the collection's title for more information Other Websites These databases have incomplete parish coverage.
 * Individual parish coverage for databases in this table are inconsistent and should be verified
 * Dates in the following table are approximate
 * Joiner Marriage Index - Norfolk ($)
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Norfolk ($)
 * Norfolk Transcription Archive
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records

Non-Conformists (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at FindMyPast ($), index and images
 * 1613-1901 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Poor Law Unions

 * Aylsham Poor Law Union
 * Norfolk Poor Law Unions

Parish chest materials of Heydon and Irmingland, 1611-1861 Microreproduction of original records at the Norfolk Record Office, Norwich.

Norfolk Record Office nos.: PD 435/19-21, 26-27.

Although Heydon and Irmingland were separate parishes, Irmlingland had no church, and the same rector, church and register served both parishes.

Rates, which are taxes, are determined by property valuation, therefore church and poor rates list owners and occupiers of properties. In some cases, they are listed alphabetically by surname.

Parish chest materials which are identified in these records as chiefly churchwardens' accounts and/or vestry minutes, can contain a variety of records including accounts, minutes, lists of parish officers, church and/or poor rates, payments made to the poor, lists of charities, donors to special collections, terriers (identification of parish boundaries and properties), description of church silver or plate, copies of wills and various other records pertaining to the history and life of the parish.

Churchwardens' accounts and rates, 1611-1688, 1807-1861; Vestry minutes, 1850-1861; Overseers' accounts and rates, 1670-1697, 1724-1758. FHL BRITISH Film 2149112 Items 2 - 6

Probate Records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Norfolk Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Websites

 * Norfolk: Heydon on GenUKI
 * Irmingland on GenUKI
 * Heydon St Peter St Paul on A Church Near You
 * British History online
 * for church record transcript information and photographs
 * Norfolk Churches website
 * for film locations in the village