ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH - LITTLE CRESSINGHAM

St. Andrew's, at first sight, appears to be a ruin. However, closer inspection will reveal that much of the church remains intact, with a shortened nave, side aisles and chancel. The ruinous look is the result of the tower 'bursting', during a storm, in about 1781; it destroyed part of the nave and side aisles as it collapsed. The remaining nave was bricked-in leaving a much smaller, attractive church, attached to the remains of the ruined tower. The tower remains were secured and made safe with the help of the Norfolk Churches Trust in 1990. The church is situated on a slope overlooking a redundant, nineteenth-century, combined wind and water mill, located in the valley of a tributary of the River Wissey.

Location and History

Flint tools and axe heads, which may well have belonged to Neanderthal Man and date from the Palaeolithic period, have been found in the Little Cressingham area. However, the main archaeological feature in the parish is a large Bronze Age barrow cemetery, approximately one mile south-east of the centre of the village, on either side of the road to Bodney. In 1849, local amateur archaeologist Thomas Barton, of Threxton, excavated a large barrow, finding the crouched skeleton of a man whose grave goods included a bronze dagger, an amber bead necklace and decorated plates of sheet gold. These items, which date from 1600BC, are now in the Castle Museum at Norwich.

Domesday Book states that Ralf de Tosny held most of Cressingham Parva and that there were twenty villagers, seven smallholders and four slaves. It was one mile in length and half in width with a mill: maybe in the same location as the redundant nineteenth-century wind/water mill? Sir Robert de Tooeny was Lord of the Manor and patron to the church, before he died in 1309. The estate then passed to his sister Alice, who married Guy de Beachamp, Earl of Warwick. Anne, Countess of Warwick released the estate to the Crown, which held it until Henry VIII sold it to Sir Richard Southwell: he held it until 1621.

 It had several more owners before being acquired by Robert Knopwood of Threxton, He sold 400 acres to the Earl of Clermont who erected the present house, Clermont Lodge, in 1776. The Earl's nephew, the Second Viscount Clermont, enlarged it in about 1811. When he died in 1829, his title became extinct and the estate passed to Sir Harry Goodricke Bart, of Ribston Hall in Yorkshire. In 1858 it was sold to the Second Duke of Wellington for £87,000. In 1863 John Remington Mills, a brewer and owner of the nearby Hilborough Estate purchased the estate.

The Ministry of Defence now owns most of the estate and leases the land to tenant farmers. The lodge was rescued from demolition by the Mills family, who had it listed. It was then purchased by artist Philip Jones, in 1973, who has restored it to its 1811 format.

There is a small hamlet known as 'The Arms' one mile to the south of the main village, it has some delightful flint cottages, colour washed houses and a redundant Methodist chapel.

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