Grimston, Norfolk Genealogy

England   Norfolk   Norfolk Parishes

Parish History
GRIMSTONE (St. Botolph), a parish, in the union and hundred of Freebridge-Lynn, W. division of Norfolk, 7½ miles (E. by N.) from Lynn.

Grimston St Botolph's is an Ancient parish in the diocese of Norwich.

Church of St.Botolph has late Saxon or early Norman origins, largely extended in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The village is just a few miles away from the Royal family's residence at Sandringham. The village was built on a spring line, and a Roman Village was found in 1903, 300 yards West of St.Botolph's Church. Subsequently Roman villas were found in the neighbouring villas of Gayton Thorpe and Well Hall to the South and Congham and Appleton the North. Some red bricks from the Villa were re-used in the church, on buttresses and on the South Wall. Grimston, and particularly the nearby hamlet of Pott Row were quite significant centres of pottery production from the 11th to 16th centuries and important suppliers of this to Scandinavia. Grimstonware finds have also been made in Italy and Spain. Pots often had faces carved just under the rim. Some of these can be seen in local Museums including the Castle Museum, Norwich.

Adam Thorowgood was born in Grimston in July 1604. He was a prominent Virginia settler in the 1620s, naming the city of Norfolk after his home county and the district of Thoroughgood in Virginia Beach is named after him, and a house he built there is open as a museum.

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.


 * Freebridge Lynn 1837-1938
 * King's Lynn 1939-1974

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

This parish's registers do not appear on FamilySearch as no microfilm for the parish is held A search of the Family History Library Catalogue identifies the following Archdeacon's transcripts are on film but these have not yet been converted to digital images for publication

Poor Law Unions
For more information on the history of the workhouse, see Peter Higginbotham's web site: www.workhouses.org.uk and http://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.html?FreebridgeLynn/FreebridgeLynn.shtml

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

Web sites

 * Norfolk: Grimston on GenUKI
 * [www.grimston.org The Parish magazine]
 * Church Info