Ditchingham

Ditchingham's name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and derives from the Old English for the homestead or settlement of 'Dicca's' people.{{Cite web |title=Key to English Place-names |url=http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Norfolk/Ditchingham |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=kepn.nottingham.ac.uk}}

In the Domesday Book, Ditchingham is listed as a settlement of 36 households in the hundred of Lodding. In 1086, the village formed part of the East Anglian estates of King William I.{{Cite web |title=Ditchingham {{!}} Domesday Book |url=https://opendomesday.org/place/TM3292/ditchingham/ |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=opendomesday.org}}

In 1855, an Anglican convent known as the Community of All Hallows was founded in Ditchingham by Lavinia Crosse and Reverend William E. Scudamore. The convent acted as a refuge for women in 'moral danger' and other destitute individuals. The community closed in 2018.{{Cite news |date=2018-02-25 |title=All Hallows: Ditchingham convent to close after 150 years |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-43172433 |access-date=2025-01-02 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}}

Lilias Rider Haggard's novel, The Rabbit Skin Cap (1939) tells the life story of George Baldry, a local inventor and poacher. The picture on the front cover of the book is a painting by Edward Seago of local schoolboy, Douglas Walter Gower. In later life, Gower discovered the tusk of a woolly mammoth near the long barrow on Broome Heath which is now displayed in Norwich Castle Museum.{{Cite web |title=Long barrow and round barrows on Broome Heath, Broome - 1004002 {{!}} Historic England |url=https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1004002 |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=historicengland.org.uk |language=en}}

Much of the surrounding countryside is part of the estate centred on Ditchingham Hall which was built in the 18th century and features gardens designed by Capability Brown. The Hall is the ancestral seat of the Earl Ferrers and is currently in the possession of Robert Shirley, 14th Earl Ferrers.{{Cite web |title=DITCHINGHAM HALL, Ditchingham - 1153041 {{!}} Historic England |url=https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1153041 |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=historicengland.org.uk |language=en}}

In the Nineteenth Century, a silk factory was built in Ditchingham which was later converted into a maltings and later use as a depot for the US Army during the Second World War. The building was severely damaged by fire in 1999 and is now in residential use.{{Cite web |title=MNF23024 - Norfolk Heritage Explorer |url=https://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/record-details?MNF23024 |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk}}

According to the 2021 census, Ditchingham has a total population of 1,823 people which demonstrates an increase from the 1,635 people listed in the 2011 census.{{Cite web |title=Ditchingham (Parish, United Kingdom) - Population Statistics, Charts, Map and Location |url=https://www.citypopulation.de/en/uk/eastofengland/admin/south_norfolk/E04006539__ditchingham/ |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=www.citypopulation.de}}

Ditchingham is located on the course of the River Waveney with the junction of the A143, between Gorleston-on-Sea and Haverhill, and the B1332, between Trowse and Ditchingham, is located in the parish.

Ditchingham's parish church is dedicated to Saint Mary and dates from the Fifteenth Century. St. Mary's is located on Church Lane and has been Grade I listed since 1960.{{Cite web |title=CHURCH OF ST MARY, Ditchingham - 1050612 {{!}} Historic England |url=https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1050612?section=official-list-entry |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=historicengland.org.uk |language=en}}

St. Mary's was restored in 1846 by Anthony Salvin and again in the 1870s by Frederick Preedy.The church boasts an interesting set of stained-glass windows depicting Edmund Tudor with Lady Margaret Beaufort as well as others which may have been imported from Europe after the Napoleonic Wars.{{Cite web |title=Norfolk Churches |url=http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/ditchingham/ditchingham.htm |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=www.norfolkchurches.co.uk}}

Ditchingham's Chicken Roundabout had been home to a group of feral chickens as early as the mid-1990s, cared for by a local man called Gordon Knowles. The number of birds living at the roundabout increased and declined over the years due to a range of factors including Avian influenza and theft. In 2010, the remaining chickens were given to an animal charity with a plaque to Knowles' role in the community being erected in 2012.{{Cite web |date=2020-01-27 |title=Tributes to ‘Ole Chicken Man of Bungay’ who catapulted roundabout into national spotlight |url=https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/20763987.tributes-ole-chicken-man-bungay-catapulted-roundabout-national-spotlight/ |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=Eastern Daily Press |language=en}}

Parravani's ice creams were established in the village in the early C20, and Lamberts Coaches are another long-established local company.

• Sir John Hobart, 3rd Baronet- (1628-1683) landowner and politician, born in Ditchingham.
• Philip Bedingfield MP- (d.1660) landowner and politician, lived in Ditchingham.
• R-Adm. Samuel Sutton- (1760-1832) Royal Navy officer, lived & died in Ditchingham.
• Lavinia Crosse- (1821-1890) founder of the Community of All Hallows, Ditchingham.
• Dr. James Franck Bright- (1832-1920) historian and academic, lived & died in Ditchingham.
• Sir H. Rider Haggard KBE- (1856-1925) author, lived & died in Ditchingham.
• William Carr- (1862-1925) biographer and historian, lived & died in Ditchingham.
• Diana Athill OBE- (1917-2019) novelist and editor, brought up in Ditchingham.
• Lt. Robert Shirley, Earl Ferrers- (1929-2012) politician and aristocrat, lived in Ditchingham.
• Kevin Steggles- (b.1961) Ipswich Town and Port Vale footballer, born in Ditchingham.
• Deb Murrell- (b.1966) cyclist, born in Ditchingham.
• Jimmy Lewis- (b.1967) Norfolk cricketer, born in Ditchingham.

Ditchingham is part of the electoral ward of Ditchingham & Earsham for local elections and is part of the district of South Norfolk.

The village's national constituency is Waveney Valley which has been represented by the Green Party's Adrian Ramsay MP since 2024.

Ditchingham War Memorial is located inside St. Mary's Church and is a brass structure including a life-sized prone statue of a British soldier created by Derwent Wood. The memorial lists the following names for the First World War:{{Cite web |title=Roll of Honour - Norfolk - Ditchingham |url=https://www.roll-of-honour.com/Norfolk/Ditchingham.html |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=www.roll-of-honour.com}}{{Cite web |title=Geograph:: Denton to Dunton cum Doughton :: War Memorials in Norfolk |url=https://www.geograph.org.uk/article/War-Memorials-in-Norfolk/6#denton-to-dunton-cum-doughton |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=www.geograph.org.uk}}

And, the following from the Second World War:

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{{Commons category|Ditchingham}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070504003635/http://www.bungay-suffolk.co.uk/tourism/bigod.htm Bath Hills Footpath] — Bungay Tourism{{oscoor gbx|TM340910_region:GB_scale:100000}}
• [http://www.origins.org.uk/genuki/NFK/places/d/ditchingham/ Information from Genuki Norfolk] on Ditchingham.

{{Civil Parishes of South Norfolk}}

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Category:Villages in Norfolk

Category:Civil parishes in Norfolk