Ditchingham

Ditchingham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is located across the River Waveney from Bungay, Suffolk.

History
Ditchingham's name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and derives from the Old English for the homestead or settlement of 'Dicca's' people.

In the Domesday Book of 1086, Ditchingham is listed as a settlement of 36 households in the hundred of Lodding. In 1086, the village formed part of the East Anglian estates of King William I.

In 1855, an Anglican convent known as the Community of All Hallows was founded in Ditchingham by Lavinia Crosse and Reverend William E. Scudamore. The convent acted as a refuge for women in 'moral danger' and other destitute individuals. The community closed in 2018.

Lilias Rider Haggard's novel, The Rabbit Skin Cap (1939) tells the life story of George Baldry, a local inventor and poacher. The picture on the front cover of the book is a painting by Edward Seago of local schoolboy, Douglas Walter Gower. In later life, Gower discovered the tusk of a woolly mammoth near the long barrow on Broome Heath which is now displayed in Norwich Castle Museum.

Much of the surrounding countryside is part of the estate centred on Ditchingham Hall which was built in the 18th century and features gardens designed by Capability Brown. The Hall is the ancestral seat of the Earl Ferrers and is currently in the possession of Robert Shirley, 14th Earl Ferrers.

Geography
The civil parish has an area of 8.56 km2 and in the 2011 Census had a population of 1,635 residents living in 739 households.

Ditchingham falls within the constituency of South Norfolk and is represented at Parliament by Richard Bacon MP of the Conservative Party. A new two-member electoral ward called Ditchingham and Earsham was created for the 2019 district council elections, consisting of 5,132 people of voting age. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of South Norfolk.

St Mary's Church
Ditchingham's parish church is dedicated to Saint Mary and boasts one of the tallest fifteenth-century towers in South Norfolk. During the 19th century, the chancel was remodelled by Anthony Salvin, followed by a restoration of the chancel arch and nave roof by Frederick Preedy. St Mary's has an interesting set of stained-glass windows depicting Edmund Tudor with Lady Margaret Beaufort, a series of knights and a timeline of rectors of the church; the manufacturer of the windows is unknown. The church is a Grade I listed building.

Chicken Roundabout
Ditchingham's Chicken roundabout had been home to a group of feral chickens as early as the mid-1990s, cared for by a local man called Gordon Knowles. The number of birds living at the roundabout increased and declined over the years due to a range of factors including Avian influenza and theft. In 2010, the remaining chickens were given to an animal charity with a plaque to Knowles' role in the community being erected in 2012.

Amenities
Parravani's ice creams were established in the village in the early C20, and Lamberts Coaches are another long-established local company.

Notable residents

 * Sir John Hobart, 3rd Baronet (1628–1683)- English landowner and politician
 * Philip Bedingfield (died 1660)- English landowner and politician
 * Samuel Sutton (1760–1832)- British naval officer
 * William E. Scudamore (1813–1881)- English priest and historian
 * Lavinia Crosse (1821–1890)- founder of Community of All Hallows
 * James Franck Bright (1832–1920)- British historian
 * H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925)- British author of King Solomon's Mines and the Allan Quatermain Series
 * William Carr (1862–1925)- British biographer and historian
 * Lilias Rider Haggard (1892–1968)- British nurse and author
 * Lt-Col Victor Buller Turner VC (1900–1972)- British soldier and recipient of the Victoria Cross
 * Diana Athill (1917–2019)- British literary editor and memoirist
 * Robert Shirley, 13th Earl Ferrers (1929–2012)- British politician and peer
 * Kevin Steggles (born 1961)- Ipswich Town and Port Vale footballer
 * Deb Murrell (born 1966)- British cyclist
 * Jimmy Lewis (born 1967)- Norfolk cricketer