Swaffham
Swaffham | ||
---|---|---|
Shire county | ||
Region | ||
Country | England | |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom | |
Post town | SWAFFHAM | |
Postcode district | PE37 | |
Dialling code | 01760 | |
Police | Norfolk | |
Fire | Norfolk | |
Ambulance | East of England | |
UK Parliament | ||
Website | Town council | |
Swaffham (
The
History
The name of the town derives from the
By the 14th and 15th centuries Swaffham had an emerging sheep and
About
On the west side of Swaffham Market Place are several old buildings which for many years housed the historic Hamond's
The
Swaffham was struck by a tornado measuring F1 on the Fujita scale and T2 on the TORRO scale on 23 November 1981 during the 1981 United Kingdom tornado outbreak.[14]
Folklore
Swaffham is one of the many locations for The Man Who Became Rich through a Dream folk tale (
In medieval folklore, a black, hairy dog called the Black Shuck was rumoured to have wandered the three settlements of Swaffham, Castle Acre, and Great Cressingham, ambushing merchants who were on their way to large towns to sell their goods. There are still rumours of a puma-like black cat wandering around Norfolk[16] and Cambridgeshire.[17]
Parish church
The church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul is one of only a few churches that have angels carved in wood instead of stone around the top of the walls. The current building, dating from 1454, is built on the foundation of the original church.[18] A wood carving of the "Pedlar of Swaffham" is also in the church.
Transport
The nearest railway stations to Swaffham are at King's Lynn and Downham Market, on the Fen line. There are regular services to Ely, Cambridge and London King's Cross, operated by Great Northern.
Until 1968, the town was served by Swaffham railway station on the Great Eastern Railway line from King's Lynn. Just after Swaffham, the line split into two: one branch headed south to Thetford and the other east towards Dereham. The lines were all closed as part of the Beeching cuts, though the possibility of rebuilding a direct rail link from Norwich to King's Lynn, via Swaffham, is raised occasionally.
The east–west
First Eastern Counties' Excel bus routes provide a regular public transport link through Swaffham between Dereham and King's Lynn.[20] Most services continue east to Norwich and west to Peterborough.
Media
Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC East and ITV Anglia. Television signals are received from either the Tacolneston or Sandy Heath TV transmitters[21] [22]
Local radio stations are BBC Radio Norfolk on 104.4 FM, Heart East on 102.4 FM, Greatest Hits Radio Norfolk & North Suffolk on 96.7 FM, Amber Radio, Radio West Norfolk and KL1 Radio.
The town's local newspaper is the Watton and Swaffham Times.[23]
Sport and leisure
Swaffham has a Non-League football club, Swaffham Town, which plays at Shoemakers Lane.
Swaffham Raceway, a former greyhound track, hosts stock car racing.
Wind turbines and Green Britain Centre
Today the town is known for the presence of two large
The turbines were originally associated with the EcoTech Centre, a visitor centre which was opened in 1999.[28] The centre hosted the 2008 British BASE jumping championships; contestants jumped from the roof of the observation deck.[29] In 2008 the energy company Ecotricity took over the management of the site[30] and in 2012 the visitor centre was renamed the Green Britain Centre. The centre provided a venue for school trips and event hire, and had educational displays focussing on sustainability in food, energy and transport.[28] The height of the attraction's popularity was in 2016, when 22,000 people visited the centre and 8,000 climbed the turbine.[31]
In June 2018 it was announced that the centre had closed for financial reasons and that Ecotricity intended to hand the building back to Breckland District Council (BDC).[28] The council subsequently put it up for rent or sale and discussed exchanging it with Swaffham Town Council in return for 5 acres (2.0 ha) of building land.[30] A proposal to convert the building into a leisure centre was considered by BDC but ultimately abandoned.[32] In 2021 the building was sold to manufacturer Flexion Global for use as their headquarters.[33] Shortly after the sale, Swaffham Town Council gave BCD a parcel of land next to the centre on which BDC intends to build a leisure centre.[31]
Climate
As with the rest of the
Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 6.6 (43.9) |
7.1 (44.8) |
10.0 (50.0) |
12.2 (54.0) |
16.2 (61.2) |
19.0 (66.2) |
21.7 (71.1) |
21.8 (71.2) |
18.6 (65.5) |
14.3 (57.7) |
9.7 (49.5) |
7.4 (45.3) |
13.8 (56.8) |
Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 0.5 (32.9) |
0.6 (33.1) |
2.3 (36.1) |
4.0 (39.2) |
6.9 (44.4) |
9.7 (49.5) |
11.8 (53.2) |
11.8 (53.2) |
9.6 (49.3) |
6.6 (43.9) |
3.2 (37.8) |
1.6 (34.9) |
5.7 (42.3) |
Average precipitation mm (inches) | 54.7 (2.15) |
38.5 (1.52) |
49.5 (1.95) |
46.8 (1.84) |
48.1 (1.89) |
55.9 (2.20) |
44.1 (1.74) |
50.5 (1.99) |
54.9 (2.16) |
59.8 (2.35) |
63.3 (2.49) |
55.3 (2.18) |
621.3 (24.46) |
Mean monthly sunshine hours | 53.6 | 73.2 | 101.7 | 150.6 | 204.3 | 191.1 | 202.7 | 192.8 | 139.8 | 109.7 | 69.0 | 48.1 | 1,536.6 |
Source: Met Office[37] |
Kingdom (TV series)
In the summer of 2006, location filming was done in the town for the ITV1 series Kingdom, starring Stephen Fry. In Kingdom the town is called Market Shipborough. The pub the Startled Duck in the TV series is better known as the Greyhound Inn, in which the Earl of Orford created the first coursing club open to the public, in 1776.[38] Peter Kingdom's office is Oakleigh House, near the town square (formerly the house of the Head Master of Hamond's Grammar School), with the coastal scenes filmed at Wells-next-the-Sea on the north Norfolk coast.
Notable people
- Dominic Byrne, newsreader on The Chris Moyles Show
- Michael Carroll, lottery winner
- Howard Carter, archaeologist who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun
- Christopher Dawes, author of Rat Scabies and The Holy Grail
- Stephen Fry, actor and writer
- W. E. Johns, author of the "Biggles" books
- William Methwold (1590–1653), born South Pickenham, East India Company merchant
- John Dugmore of Swaffham (1793–1871), draughtsman and grand-tourist[39]
- Hilda Plowright (1890-1973), actress
- Phyllis Broughton (1860–1926) actress, spent her childhood here.[40]
- Sir First Sea Lord
References
- ^ "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 12 August 2016.
- ^ "About Us". Swaffham Town Council. Archived from the original on 9 April 2017.
- ^ Office for National Statistics & Norfolk County Council (2001). Census population and household counts for unparished urban areas and all parishes. Retrieved 2 December 2005.
- ISBN 978-1-4456-5728-8.
- ISBN 0-9506728-0-7
- ^ Historic England. "Former Corn Hall (1269617)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
- ^ The Pedlar of Swaffham. More English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1894). Retrieved on 27 March 2007
- ^ The Pedlar of Swaffham. Old City – Names and Legends. Retrieved on 27 March 2007
- ^ Animation Archived 25 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Literary Norfolk Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ Google books Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ Howard Carter Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ Swaffham Museum Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ "European Severe Weather Database".
- ^ Ashliman, D. L. "The Man Who Became Rich through a Dream: Folktales of Type 1645". University of Pittsburgh. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
- ^ Long, Jessica (27 August 2016). "Is this the infamous Norfolk panther prowling near Saxlingham Nethergate?". Eastern Daily Press. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
- ^ Brown, Raymond (18 May 2019). "'Big cat map' reveals police reports of Fen Tiger sightings near you". CambridgeshireLive. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
- ^ "Norfolk Churches". norfolkchurches. Retrieved 4 September 2016.
- ISBN 0-319-21867-8.
- ^ "excel - Norwich - Dereham - Swaffham - Kings Lynn - Wisbech - Peterborough | First Bus". www.firstbus.co.uk. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
- ^ "Full Freeview on the Tacolneston (Norfolk, England) transmitter". UK Free TV. 1 May 2004. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
- ^ "Full Freeview on the Sandy Heath (Central Bedfordshire, England) transmitter". UK Free TV. 1 May 2004. Retrieved 3 December 2023.
- ^ "Watton and Swaffham Times". British Papers. 29 October 2013. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
- ^ "The Green Britain Centre, Norfolk". Ecotricity. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
- ^ "Swaffham, Norfolk". Ecotricity. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
- ^ Ecotricity. Swaffham-I and Swaffham-II. Retrieved 10 February 2006.
- ^ "Eco Tech Centre (United-Kingdom) - Wind farms - Online access - The Wind Power". thewindpower.net. Retrieved 29 December 2016.
- ^ a b c Doug Faulkner (13 June 2018). "Businesses and schools left in the lurch as Swaffham's Green Britain Centre closes suddenly". Eastern Daily Press.
- ^ "Turbine hosts base jumping". BBC News. 29 September 2008. Retrieved 26 January 2011.
- ^ a b Chapman, Thomas (15 November 2019). "Swap deal could breathe new life into vacant visitor attraction". Watton and Swaffham Times.
- ^ a b Vickers, Noah (8 August 2021). "What does the future hold for Swaffham's Green Britain Centre?". Eastern Daily Press.
- ^ Nicholson, Abigail (18 January 2021). "Environmental centre was 'too difficult' to convert into leisure facility, says council". Eastern Daily Press.
- ^ Moxon, Daniel (12 July 2021). "International firm to move global HQ to Norfolk town". Eastern Daily Press.
- ^ "Marham temperature extremes". EDP.
- ^ "Marham temperature 2003". Tutiempo weather.
- ^ "Marham temperature 2010". EDP.
- ^ "Marham 1971–2000 climate averages". Met Office. Archived from the original on 2 March 2014. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
- ^ "History of Greyhounds: 18th and 19th Centuries". gulfcoastgreyhounds.org. Retrieved 29 December 2016.
- ^ The Dugmore of Swaffham family archives are filed by the UK National Archives
- ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8, retrieved 9 February 2024
External links
- Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). 1911. .
- Swaffham Town Council
- Information from Genuki Norfolk on Swaffham