England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Dilham St Nicholas

The Parish

The parish of Dilham lies in eastern Norfolk not too far from its North Sea coastline. Dilham is located roughly 5 miles southeast of the market town of North Walsham and sis immediately east of the A149 road which connects North Walsham with Great Yarmouth. Dilham is a small and compact village which sits on the banks of the River Ant, its compact centre leading to a straggle of properties heading north towards it eponymous Hall. Like most Norfolk villages Dilham would have been an arable farming community, however its position on the Ant gave it access to the Broadland river network and enabled malting of the local grain as well as transportation of that grain to employ a few. Modern developments have come to Dilham, that water-route was canalised to North Walsham as the Dilham Canal but is nowadays a wildlife haven and popular walkway. The Ant drains the parish southwards to join the Bure to the east of Horning, the Bure, along with most eastern Norfolk rivers, then meets the North Sea through the port of Great Yarmouth. Dilham is sited at around 10 metres above the sea in gentle terrain where no land exceeds 20 metres for some considerable distance. Dilham parish was fairly typically sized for its area, covering just under 1,600 acres it would have supported a population of around 500 parishioners. In Domesday times Dilham was a modest place, yet shared by no fewer than 4 landholders, even so their assets only amounted to 6 ploughs and the usual meadows & woodland.

The Church

St Nicholas' church sits in splendid isolation some half mile northwest of the village amongst extensive cereal fields at a minor junction of lanes. One should not be deceived by the presence of the apparent stump of a Norman round tower, this is a "romantic replacement" as Pevsner notes of a former Perpendicular styles tower built in 1835. Indeed little of this church remains as it would have appeared to the folk married in this transcript as no fewer than two rebuilds have rendered little remaining of the medieval. Old materials have been reused internally for the hammerbeam roof but externally all is of the two rebuilds, the first in 1775 and the second more recently in 1931. The use of Perpendicular styling is perhaps indicative of what those two rebuilds saw fit to replace. The verges around the church have ample room for parking allowing an extended visit. The churchyard is banked above road level and fringed with trees, wooden gates grant entry into a churchyard which is largely devoid of obstacles for the photographer.