North Elmham - History

History

The name North Elmham comes from the Old English, meaning "village where elms grow" and is first mentioned in 1035. Only ruins now survive of the Saxon cathedral. It housed the episcopal throne of the bishops of Elmham from around 672 until the episcopal see was moved to Thetford in 1075. A mid-ninth century copper-alloy hanging censer was discovered at North Elmham in 1786. The earthworks and ruins at North Elmham stewarded by English Heritage are thought to be the remains of Bishop Herbert de Losinga's late eleventh-century episcopal church and the late fourteenth century double-moated castle built on this by Henry le Despenser, Bishop of Norwich.

To the north of the village was the Norfolk County School which on closing in the 1890s was taken over for the Watts Naval School. The fine buildings have now been demolished. The village is also the birthplace of the actor John Mills. The County School Station on branch line served the school, and today is preserved as a small visitor centre. The village once had its own station, North Elmham railway station, on the Mid-Norfolk Railway line from Wymondham to Fakenham. The building still exists and there are plans to re-open the building as a station or build a new one. This would be needed to connect the County School station described above to the rest of the Mid-Norfolk railway.

North Elmham Mill, known locally Grint Mill, had two breastshot waterwheels until the early twentieth century when they were replaced by two turbines. By the 1970s the milling machinery was driven by mains electricity while the turbines were used to drive a sack hoist and two mixing machines. The mill continued to produce animal feed into the late twentieth century.