England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Great Snoring St Mary the Virgin

The Parish

The parish of Great Snoring lies in northern Norfolk roughly 4 miles northeast of the market town of Fakenham. Great Snoring lies almost 3 miles north of the A148 road which connects Fakenham with Holt & Cromer. Great Snoring is a small and relatively compact crossroads village with most properties lying around and elongated oval pattern of lanes. Like most Norfolk parishes Great Snoring would have largely earned its living from arable farming, early gazetteers estimate that as much as 85% of the parish acreage as being set to such husbandry and today little has changed with the village surrounded by the vast fields characteristic of modern farming methods. Great Snoring is set within a shallow valley formed by the upper River Stiffkey which drains the parish southwest, west and finally northwards to meet the North Sea through the salt-marshes at Stiffkey village. Great Snoring is sited at around 50 metres above the sea in fairly gentle terrain where local high points rarely venture more than 10 metres higher. Great Snoring parish was fairly typically sized for this area, covering around 1,650 acres it would have supported a population of close to 550 parishioners. Great Snoring is only given a cursory mention in Domesday Book as an adjunct to nearby Thursford with no specific entry of its own.

The Church

St Mary's church sits close to the main crossroads of the village on the western side of The Street, which is the main north/south running lane. The church has mere traces of an early origin, an Early English Gothic southern doorway is matched by a Transitional period priest's doorway from the latter end of that century. The Decorated style of the early 14th century sees a little more remaining and is represented by the sedilia and piscina. It is, however, to the Perpendicular period of the late 14th century that the bulk of St Mary is attributed, this being the great church-building era in Norfolk. The four-stage western tower, so typical of Norfolk in the local flint is contemporary with that typical Perpendicular feature of a clerestory, added at that time to improve internal lighting. Restoration came early to St Mary with the nave & aisle roofs replaced in Georgian times of 1800, the chancel followed in the more familiar Victorian restoration. The church sits well back from The Street, which is adequately broad enough to permit parking, fronted by the normal flint & brick wall which has a pair of wooden gates for entry. Once within there are few obstacles for the photographer.