Riddlesworth, Norfolk Genealogy

England Norfolk   Norfolk Parishes

Parish History
RIDDLESWORTH (St. Peter), a parish, in the union and hundred of Guilt-Cross, W. division of Norfolk, 4 miles (S. W. by S.) from East Harling. The living is a discharged rectory, with that of Gasthorpe united.

Riddlesworth St Peter is an Ancient parish in the Diocese of Norwich. The church was part of Riddlesworth Hall now Riddlesworth Hall School, famous for being the school attended in the 1970's by Diana Spencer before her father inherited his title and she became Princess of Wales.

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.


 * Guiltcross to 1902
 * Thetford 1902-1938
 * Wayland 1939-1974

Church records
parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Norfolk Record Office reference PD 528/ 1-4Riddlesworth with Gasthorpe, Norfolk

Census records
Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved. Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search. Find my Past 1911 census search

Poor Law Unions
Guiltcross Poor Law Union later Thetford Poor Law Union

See also England Norfolk Poor Law Union Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Norfolk Poor Law Unions

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