Foulsham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is located 7.40 miles (11.91 km) north-east of Dereham and 16 miles (26 km) north-west of Norwich. Foulsham is renowned in the local area for its unspoilt nature and the number of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century buildings.
History
Foulsham name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and derives from the Old English for Fugol's homestead or village.[1]
Foulsham has been the site of major Bronze Age discoveries including a golden torc ploughed-up in 1846[2] and a hoard of 141 copper-socketed axeheads, discovered in 1953 and now in the care of Norwich Castle Museum.[3]
In the Domesday Book, Foulsham is listed as a settlement of 103 households in the hundred of Eynesford. In 1086, the village was part of the East Anglian estates of King William I. The worth of Foulsham is recorded as two churches, a mill, twelve cattle, four hundred pigs, fifty goats and 13 sesters of honey.[4]
In the Seventeenth Century, Foulsham was a thriving market place until a store of gunpowder exploded on the 15 June 1770 which led to a fire that consumed the whole market place.[6]
According to the 2011 Census, Foulsham has a population of 1,021 residents living in 444 households. Furthermore, the parish has a total area of 12.56 square kilometres (4.85 sq mi).[7]
The chancel of Foulsham's parish church dates largely from the Fourteenth Century with the rest of the church being constructed in the Fifteenth Century, the church was restored in the Nineteenth Century. The church roof has been recently restored and the font is likely a Nineteenth Century copy of a Sixteenth Century original.[8]
Amenities
Foulsham still has a public house, known as the Queen's Head, which has operated on its current site since the mid-Nineteenth Century.[9]
The majority of local children attend Foulsham Primary School, which was rated as 'Good' by Ofsted in 2020.[10]
John Astley (1735–1803)- British clergyman and Rector of Foulsham, 1771-1803
War memorial
Foulsham's war memorial takes the form of a stone obelisk above an octagonal plinth, located in an island in Foulsham High Street. The memorial lists the following names for the First World War:
