England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Brunstead St Peter

The Parish

The parish of Brunstead (spelt as Brumstead in earlier sources) lies in northeastern Norfolk not too far from its eastern North Sea coast and roughly 1 mile north of the small market town of Stalham. There is very little to Brunstead, the hall & church plus a scatter of farms & cottages across it rather small acreage. Brunstead sits on the B1159 road which connects Stalham with the nearby coastal settlements of Walcott and Bacton. Brunstead's economy, like so many in Norfolk, would have been dominated by arable farming although the parish also possessed a small tract of the water-meadows of the River Ant enabling some pastures to be exploited. Modern developments did temporarily come to the parish with the Midland & Great Northern branch line between North Walsham & Great Yarmouth passing through albeit that has since been largely dismantled and today is a footpath and cycleway. The Ant drains the parish into the complex of rivers forming Norfolk's Broadland heading for the North Sea through the port of Great Yarmouth. Brunstead is sited at around 10 metres above the sea, a height which is not exceeded for some considerable distance in this area of largely flat land. Norfolk parishes are typically small and Broadland ones exceptionally so, Brunstead parish covered around 800 acres and within that area would have supported a population of little more than 100 parishioners. In Domesday times, by contrast, Brunstead was a much more significant settlement, held by one Roger Bigot it could offer an impressive 21 ploughs, meadows & woodland, a mill and a shared salthouse.

The Church

St Peter's church sits just east of the B1159, adjacent to the hall and reached along The Avenue. The church is a fairly typical example of 14th century Norfolk churches. The nave, in the Decorated style, is the slightly earlier piece whilst the western tower shows the Perpendicular styling of the later 14th century, both indicative of a sustained build through that century. The eastern end of the church, the chancel, has received much attention over the centuries, the Georgians truncated it in 1827 and it was again altered as part of a general restoration by the Victorians in 1867. Further work by the latter replaced the eastern window in 1875. The Avenue leads after 300 metres or so to the churchyard with its typical flint & brick surrounds, unfortunately the southern aspects are somewhat limited by trees restricting the angles available for photography.