TRUNCH HILL
At the centre of the village, was once the site of Trunch Saturday Market which has a record of tolls paid in 1276, in the reign of Edward 1, when the market was worth –in the value of money at that time – ten shillings.
At the time of William the Conqueror 1066, Trunch was in the Great Manor of Gimingham-Lancaster, and it was the market centre of that manor.
Yes Trunch
had its own brewery!
Owned by the Primrose family, who
had lived in Trunch since the Fifteenth Century, the brewery was founded in
1803 and major rebuilding took place in 1837 under William Primrose. Later the
brewery passed into the hands of Philip Primrose then Mrs. B. Primrose until
1904. Later that year W. Churchill took over, and then in 1912 it was being run
by Edward Woodyatt until Cuthbert Smith was running the business in 1921.
Registered as a Private Company in1939 it was acquired by Morgan’s Brewery Co.
Ltd. In 1952 with 9 public houses. It is now demolished, although the original
Brewery House still stands.
Note: Morgan's Brewery of Norwich was acquired jointly by Bullard & Son Ltd and Stewart & Patterson Ltd in 1961. These two breweries were acquired by Watney Mann Ltd in 1964.
See separate article written about
the Primrose family and generously provided by Wendy and Michael Bird.
Figure 2 St. Botolph's Church
Trunch Church stands in place of (and presumably, on the site
of) the earlier Saxon church. As regards its date it was probably erected
between 1350 and 1500.
From Bacton Abbey or Bromholm
Priory as it was then, the Monks came to Trunch to worship.
The Font canopy dates from about
1500, it is carved in oak, and has slender pillars forming a hexagonal
enclosure. It is one of only four others to be found in England, Durham
Cathedral 1680, St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich 1450, and St. Mary’s, Luton 1350.
The ‘Mass’ clock was the
forerunner to the sundial, and of course clocks, and was a circular indentation
on the south wall of the church, showed by the shadow on its markings the
passage of time.
Church registers began in 1558,
during the reign of Henry V111, and in 1678, an Act of Parliament enjoined that
all bodies should be interred wrapped in woollen, under penalty of paying fifty
shillings to the informer and fifty shillings to the poor in the parish if the
law was not observed. The fact had to be registered, an affidavit being given
to the rector within eight days of the burial to certify that this condition
had been fulfilled. The Act, which had been passed for the encouragement of the
wool trade, was not repealed until 1815.
Lord Nelson’s daughter Horatia
married Philip Ward, the son of Marmaduke Ward, a curate of Trunch for
thirty-seven years.
Leprosy was common – Lazar-Houses,
those still existing as late as 1938 at Sprowston and one at Walsingham.
