England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Lyng St Margaret

The Parish

The parish of Lyng lies in the eastern portion of central Norfolk roughly 7 miles northeast of the market town of East Dereham. Lyng sits just over 1 mile south of the A1067 road which links the city of Norwich with the market town of Fakenham and sits on the southern banks of the River Wensum. As Lyng lies along the valley it is a linear village with a long main street parallel with the river augmented with various side turnings. Like most Norfolk parishes Lyng would have been dominated by arable farming, as it still is today. Early gazetteers estimate that as much as 77% of the parish acreage would have been set to arable, a few pastures alongside the course of the river providing a little variety. In addition the river supplied the necessary water for the village's other main employer, a paper mill once sat beside the Wensum and employed many of the villagers. The Wensum drains the parish eastwards, passing through Norwich before joining the Yare for its final stretch to the North Sea arriving through the port of Great Yarmouth. Lyng is sited between 10 & 20 metres above the sea in its valley setting, that valley is only shallow as the general lie of the land is at around 50 metres in gentle terrain. At just under 1,900 acres Lyng parish was fairly typically sized for Norfolk away from Broadland, that acreage would have supported a population of about 600 parishioners. In Domesday times Lyng was a rather small manor of just 8 households providing assets of 5 ploughs, typical meadows and woodlands and a mill, on the Wensum, for its landholder Count Alan of Brittany.

The Church

St Margaret's church, early gazetteers refer to it as St Clement. sits tucked away behind fronting properties from the main street, The Street. The church would have been a product almost entirely of the Perpendicular era until the early 20th century whence the chancel was rebuilt, the nave and western tower show signs of having been originally built in the 14th century but subsequently remodelled in the 15th. The northern doorway and the chancel arch remain from the 14th century version whilst scars remain on walls from a former northern aisle removed at the 15th century rebuild. Whilst the tower, unbuttressed, is styled for the 15th century its tracery harks back to the previous century's fashions, its aging is proven by it aligning with the widened nave rather than the 14th century chancel arch. More modern features include a Dutch gable in brick from the 18th century above the porch and the rebuilt chancel of 1912, somewhat despoiled by the addition of concrete tiling in 1972. The church is one to approach on foot after finding suitable parking on The Street, access is along a narrow gravel pathway leaving The Street a few hundred metres east of the Fox Inn where a small sign points the way. The churchyard is, however, rather beset by trees leaving a somewhat restricted set of angles for the photographer to use.