Feltwell is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is located 11 miles (18 km) north-west of Thetford and 34 miles (55 km) south-west of Norwich.
History
Feltwell's name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and derives from the Old English for a spring or stream with an abundance of mullein.[1]
Feltwell has good archaeological evidence for Roman settlement, including two unidentified buildings, two villas and two bathhouses which prove the wealth of Feltwell during the Roman era.[2]
In August 1382 the poet John Gower purchased the manors of Feltwell in Norfolk and Moulton in Suffolk. They were then granted to Thomas Blakelake, parson of St Nicholas's, Feltwell, and others, at a rent of £40 annually for his life.[4]: xvi
Geography
According to the 2011 Census, Feltwell has a population of 2,825 residents living in 1,235 households. Furthermore, the parish has a total area of 52.16 square kilometres (20.14 sq mi)[5] which makes it the largest parish in Norfolk.[citation needed]
Feltwell's active Church of England parish church, St Mary's, is also a Grade I listed building.[8] It largely dates from the fifteenth century and was built after the site of earlier worship was severely damaged by fire. St Mary's displays East Anglia's finest examples of French stained-glass installed by the Parisian workshops of Édouard Didron and Eugene Oudinot, installed in the nineteenth century. The church was extended in the late-nineteenth century under the oversight, as with St Nicholas, of Frederick Preedy.
Feltwell Primary School is named after Sir Edmund de Moundeford, a seventeenth-century Feltwell resident and politician. In 2022, the school was rated as 'Good' by Ofsted.[9]
Feltwell's only remaining public house is called The Wellington, named after the Vickers Wellingtons that flew from RAF Feltwell during the Second World War, which dates from the eighteenth century and has in its history been used as a shop, an off-licence, a restaurant and, most recently, a wine-bar known as 'The Lodge.' The pub opened as The Wellington in 2014.[10] The Chequers closed in 2017 having stood on its current site since the eighteenth century with significant renovation in 1930.[11]
Feltwell's war memorial takes the form of a marble Celtic cross above a plinth, located inside St Mary's churchyard. The memorial lists the following names for the First World War:
