England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
East Tuddenham All Saints

The Parish

The parish of East Tuddenham lies in the eastern portion of central Norfolk roughly 9 miles west of the city of Norwich. East Tuddenham sits a mile south of the A47 road which crosses the county from Norwich to the port of King's Lynn. East Tuddenham is a small and compact village with most properties lining the broad lane which joins the larger neighbour of Mattishall with the A47. Like most Norfolk parishes East Tuddenham was a farming parish and dominated by arable methods, early gazetteers estimate as much as 75% of the parish acreage as set to arable and little has changed today, the area dominated by broad fields of cereals, beet and oil seed. East Tuddenham gets part of its name from the River Tud which drains the parish and flows eastwards between the village and the A47, the Tud joins the Wensum on the outskirts of Norwich and east of the city the Yare before making its way to the North Sea arriving through the port of Great Yarmouth. East Tuddenham sits on a gently rising site at between 40 & 50 metres above the sea in fairly gentle terrain where the 60 metres contour is rarely breached within 5 miles of East Tuddenham. At just short of 2,100 acres East Tuddenham was slightly larger than the typical east Norfolk arable parish, that acreage would have supported a population of around 550 parishioners. In Domesday times East Tuddenham was shared between 4 landholders with Count Alan of Brittany holding the largest share, a respectable total of 14 ploughs, backed by typical meadows & woodland together with a mill and half share in a second made for a profitable set of holdings.

The Church

All Saints' church sits a quarter of a mile east of the village accessed by an avenue of trees from the main lane through the parish. The earliest fabric in the church relates to the southern doorway which is 13th century and Early English Gothic in style, the majority of the church, however, is a typical mixture of the 14th and 15th century styles of the Decorated & Perpendicular. The earlier of the two styles is represented by a window in the chancel, most others at the eastern end are replacements. The remainder is Perpendicular including the majority of the chancel, the nave and western tower. The Perpendicular style is at its most flourished in the elaborate southern porch with Pevsner describes as "the most ambitious in the neighbourhood". Documentary evidence from will donations place its construction to c1460, a date not inconsistent with much of the church's styling. A large blue sign marks the otherwise obscure start of the track to the church, a lay-by a few yards west allows safe parking, a shaded track leads in roughly 100 metres to the churchyard. Unfortunately for the photographer the church is crowded by trees to both west and east allowing only a limited range of aspects.