Bircham Newton, Norfolk Genealogy

England   Norfolk   Norfolk Parishes

Parish History
Bircham Newton All Saints is an Ancient parish in the county of Norfolk.

Bircham Newton is the smallest of the three villages that make up the civil parish of Bircham, in the west of the English county of Norfolk. The village is located about 1 km north of the larger village of Great Bircham, 20 km north-east of the town of King's Lynn, and 60 km north-west of the city of Norwich.

Bircham Newton gave its name to an airfield, RAF Bircham Newton, that was in use through World War II and into the 1960s.The site was first used during the First World War and received the largest British bomber of the time, the Handley Page V/1500. They would have carried out bombing missions against Berlin but the Armistice was arranged before any missions were actually flown.

The airfield was equipped with one aircraft repair shed and three double bay general service sheds, although these had been demolished by 1937. It had two Belfast hangars, three C Type hangars, three Bellman hangars, and ten Blister hangars.

It operated through the Second World War as part of No. 16 Group RAF as part of Coastal Command. No. 206 Squadron RAF was one of the squadrons being based there, on maritime patrol duties. Two satellite airfields, RAF Docking and RAF Langham were opened to accommodate units.

In 1965 the airfield was used for evaluation trials of the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel V/STOL aircraft. BIRCHAM-NEWTON (All Saints), a parish, in the union of Docking, hundred of Smithdon, W. division of Norfolk, 7¼ miles (S. W. by S.) from BurnhamWestgate.

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.

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

Parish Records of Great Bircham with Bircham Newton and Bircham Tofts are deposited at Norfolk Record Office reference PD34

Parish registers for Bircham Newton Microfilm copy of original in the Norfolk Record Office, Central Library in Norwich, Norfolk, England. Some Latin.

Baptisms, burials, 1744-1812. Baptisms, 1813-1975. Marriages and marriage banns, 1756-1808. Marriages, 1813-1932. Burials, 1814-1980. FHL BRITISH Film 1951566 Items 12 - 17

Archdeacons transcripts, 1725-1812 Microfilm copies of original records in the Norfolk Record Office, Central Library, Norwich, Norfolk, England.

Baptisms and burials 1725-1812 Marriages 1725-1737, 1751-1804 FHL BRITISH Film 1526809 Item 12

Census records
1891 Stray from Bircham in Census Return: Transcribed by Geoff Lowe and housed by Norfolk Transcription Archives

Poor Law Unions
Docking Poor Law Union, Norfolk

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

Web sites

 * Bircham Newton on GenUKI