Bylaugh is located 4.5 miles (7.2 km) north-east of Dereham and 14 miles (23 km) north-west of Norwich. Due to its small size, Bylaugh is often included with the nearby parish of Sparham.
History
Bylaugh's name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and derives from the Old English for either a funeral-pyre enclosure or a wood clearing enclosure.[2]
In the Domesday Book, Bylaugh is recorded as a settlement of 14 households in the hundred of Eynesford. In 1086, the village was part of the estates of Alan of Brittany.[3]
Bylaugh Hall, built of stone in 1851, and its estate are immediately above the church.[4] The house is currently under restoration after it was stripped of its lead and interior fittings, and abandoned in 1950. The hall was the headquarters of 100 Group Royal Air Force during the Second World War. Its flat (parapet) roof has "obelisks and heraldic beasts".[4] Its gatepiers, farm-enclosing railings and gazebo are separately listed, as is a farmbuilding and clocktower.[5]
Rustic farmbuildings at Park Farm are listed at Grade II*.[6]
Bylaugh Old Hall remains as a farm in the village. It is a brick building dating from the 17th century.[7]
Geography
The 2011 census statistics for the parish are unavailable due to its small size. It forms the western third or so of the E00134328 Output Area that had 315 inhabitants: of these, 314 lived in a whole house or bungalow and only one lived in a flat. None lived in a caravan, other mobile or temporary structure.[8]
This smaller than average parish has three farms and is bounded to the south by the River Wensum. The rest of its people have smallholdings, live in the distant row of three cottages or live in homes in the Bylaugh Hall grounds. Its shape, due to the river bends immediately south, resembles a molar (tooth). Approximately one sixth of Bylaugh is made up of its northern woodland, Bylaugh Wood, which adjoins Bawdeswell Heath, separated by the road between that village and Dereham, the nearest main town. Elevations range from 47 m in the grounds of Bylaugh Hall at its centre, to 22 m above mean sea level in the southwest corner, just above Elsing mill.[9] Like much of north Norfolk, the parish has a significant minority of woodland, its other named (and largest) woods being the Elsing Lodge/Jubilee Plantation and Sparhamhole Plantation.[10]
A sewage treatment works in the south of the village treats primarily the effluent of Swanton Morley and Bawdeswell, preventing damage to the canoe-navigable River Wensum.
Church of St. Mary the Virgin
Bylaugh's parish church is dedicated to Saint Mary and is one of Norfolk's 124 remaining round-tower churches. The church is located at the edge of Bylaugh Park and has been Grade I listed since 1960.[11] The church was significantly re-built in 1809 by Charles Barry at the expense of Sir John Lombe who is buried in the chancel.[12]
A plaque on the west side of the church states:
The chancel of this church rebuilt, the North and South transepts added. The tower buttress, windows, roof and battlements substantially rebuilt and repaired. And the interior of this church and chancel fitted up at the sole expense of Sir John Lombe Bart. – Patron
