A
genealogical study of the Greenwood's of Co Norfolk, England. Because
my own Greenwood's moved around a fair bit, in order to make a
comprehensive study as possible of the family it was necessary to
examine and chart all the Greenwood families of Co Norfolk, from before
1500 to after 1900.
Caution
- these files are large, both Greenwood files are around 1M in size so
please be patient while the files display
Given
the very rare use of the Christian name “Erasmus” it would seem likely
that the Erasmus Greenwood who appears in Norwich by 1684 is a
descendent of Erasmus of Bacton. Erasmus of Norwich was probably born
before 1665, which is merely the latest feasible date of birth. He
would have likely been born in the 1650’s (or even earlier if he
married late). It is possible that Erasmus of Norwich is the son of
Samuel (Erasmus of Bacton’s son), however this would leave the
generations a bit too tight – Erasmus of Norwich would have had to be
born when his father was 20yo or less and in turn have married when he
was also 20yo or less. More likely he was a younger son – given the
child mortality of the time he may well have been Erasmus &
Margaret’s 2nd, 3rd or even 4th attempt at producing a son named after
his father.
Bacton is on the coast of
Norfolk, north-east of Aylsham (on
almost a
straight line from Aylsham, through North Walsham and onto the coast).
There are a few scattered BMD events in the area pre-1700, however none
have an obvious connection with Erasmus Greenwood. Bacton was was
always a coastal village - it was originally an inland village, some
distance inland from the village of Keswick. Thanks to flooding and
coastal erosion Keswick has long since vanished and now Bacton lies on
the coast. Bacton dates back to at least 495AD when the invading Saxons
called it Bectuna ("Bec's Town"). After the Norman invasion the village
was known as Bachetuna
and passed into the hands of Robert de Glanville. His son,
William,
founded the Bromholm Priory in 1113. The priory had rather humble
origins but in 1223 it bought a supposed piece of the Cross. Claims of
miracles followed and the village and priory enjoyed an economic boom
(Edward II was a noted visitor) which continued until the 16th Century
& the dissolution of the monastic orders by Henry VIII. The
village
was particularly hard hit by plague in the late 14880's and again
between 1625-1650. The latter is of particular significance since it
during this time that the anscestor of this Greenwood family left
Bacton and moved to Norwich. The church is sited some distance from the
village centre (it has been speculated this was due to the decimation
of the village in the plague). The present church building dates to the
15th Century, constructed from squared flint and stone.[81]
St
Augustine was one of 36 parish churches in medieval Norwich to survive
the Reformation; but it has always seemed apart from the others
&
it is the
last
district within the old Norwich City boundaries to retain a distinctive
identity. This isolation was partially geographical and partly
deliberate. St
Augustine's was cut off in the
past from the main hub of Norwich's cultural, economic and political
activity by distance and the River Wensum. In centuries past it was
also a
place where activities and people found inconvenient or intolerable
south of the river found the space to exist and grow. It was once known
as "Ultra
Aquam" or Norwich ‘Over-the-Water’. It was home to some of Norwich’s
chief trades and industries.
Iron smelting was carried out there in the early Middle Ages; while in
the 16th century many citizens, including religious and economic
migrants found homes and work here, mainly in the wool-weaving trade.
Religious minorities including Jews, Methodists & Quakers have
also
found refuge here during periods when the practice of their faiths and
even the burial of their dead was deemed unacceptable elsewhere in the
City. Here also, just outside the City Wall, was once located one of
Norwich’s lazar (leper) houses; the site was later used as a workhouse
for 'pauper lunatics'. St Augustine, originally known as St Austin's,
is no longer a functioning church.[85,86] It
is perhaps no surprise that Erasmus Greenwood (and/or his father), upon
arriving in Norwich, settled initially in the St Augustine district -
it was a place for refugees and Erasmus could well have been just that,
although in his case a refugee escaping the ravages of the plague which
was decimating his home village of Bacton. It is also possible that
Erasmus was involved in the weaving trade since that appears to have
been the primary employer in the St Augustine district at the time he
appeared there. With a bit of a stretch of the imagination it is
possible that he was even employed by Miles Greenwood (1627-1681)
&
his son John Greenwood (1653-1699) who were, at the time, the
preeminent worsted weavers of Norwich.[9,24-27] Alongside St Augustine's
graveyard are the Gildencroft Tudor Cottages, dating back to the 16th
century.[85,86]
Could Erasmus have lived in one of these during his years at St
Augustine?
St
Saviour's has suffered rather unkindly over the centuries: in the 18th
and 19th centuries the area became a slum. It survived WW2 intact but
with the large-scale razing of large swathes of buildings across the
poorer areas of Norwich following the war the church was virtually left
without a parish. In the 1960's the church closed and spent the next
several decades quietly decaying until it was aquired in the 1990's by The
King's Church, Norwich's branch of the New Frontiers International
Church. They restored the building, converting it into a hall with
offices and a cafe for their youth ministry which continues to
successfully operate from the site. At least St Saviour's is again
functioning as a church, of sorts (it's now known as "The Gate"),
something many of it's sister churches have lost. The church sits at
the intersection of St Saviour Lane and Magdalene Street and today is
surrounded by a large carpark & public toilet (on the site of
the
graveyard!) and rather unattractive looking factories and
warehouses.[87,88] Most of the buildings in the St Saviour's area were
of brick and flint construction and all were of two main storeys with
lath and plaster dormers presenting a typical Norwich gabled skyline.
Leading off the streets were the Norwich "yards", small cull-de-sacs
leading to yet more tenements.[88] Sometime around 1690
Erasmus
moved from St Augustine to St Saviour - less a step up in the world as
a step sideways. No doubt he and his family lived in one of these
tenements. Whether or not Erasmus remained in St Saviour's, it seems
his surviving children all moved out.
St.
Bartholomew's, Heigham, was the parish church for the village of
Heigham. The church was built in 1254 and largely destroyed by bombing
during a WW2 raid on 29/4/1942, all that remains is the tower. During
the
nineteenth century Heigham
grew from
a small village clustered around the church of St Bartholomew just to
the north-west of Norwich, to a large residential suburb of Norwich
today. The
church, including the tower, was completely burnt out in the raid; only
the walls were left standing. The
tower, which had sustained only slight exterior damage, and was of
unusual design was retained whilst the rest of the remains were
demolished. In
1976 the tower was repaired and the site opened as a public park.
Heigham had many medieval buildings, however little has survived the
ravages of the WW2 bombings and the latter redevelopments. Homes were
typically built of flint stone with (presumably) thatched roofs which
were eventually replaced with tiles. The village of Heigham is thought
to have originally been called Staunford, possibly from a paved ford
which may have been here. Heigham Causeway, "Heigham Carnser," was an
artificial road formed over wet meadows and no doubt gave rise to the
present day name. Heigham is (or was) one of the lowest and most prone
to flooding areas of Norfolk.[31,88,89]
Like
St Bartholomew's, Heigham, St Benedict, Norwich, was destroyed by a WW2
carpet bombing raid in January 1942 which saw the church and parish almost entirely
destroyed. All that remains today of the church is the tower, which forms to focal
point of a housing estate courtyard. The
church was originally sited in a maze of narrow lanes that interspersed
the courts between St Benedict's Street and Pottergate. St Benedict's
Street itself is a part of the old city that has mostly survived; fine
Victorian and Edwardian two and three storey buildings front the
street, with much older ones huddling in courtyards behind. Once past
the site of the church, the architecture of St Benedict’s Street has
altered surprisingly little; the openings to many of the old yards
remain, though little is left of the cottages they once contained. These days, this area is the
heart of alternative Norwich. In the 1700's within a 500m stretch of
road there were
five medieval churches, none of which remain as a functioning church: St
Laurence is one of Norwich's biggest, St Gregory probably its most
interesting, St Margaret is used for exhibitions and St Swithin is the
excellent Norwich Arts Centre. But it is the most westerly, St
Benedict, which gives the street its name. It once gave its name to a
gate in the city walls, as well. Not much of the original church
remained to be bombed in 1942 - it had been extensively restored twice
in the 1800's. Archaeological excavations in 1972 revealed four
mediaeval building periods, along with traces of earlier religious uses
of the site. The first church, possibly dating from late in the
eleventh century, was a simple one of nave and small chancel. This was
followed about a century later by the building of a tower and
enlargement of the chancel, which was then made square-ended. In the
third building phase all but the tower was demolished, to be replaced,
perhaps early in the fourteenth century, by a slightly larger church
having nave and chancel of equal width. Finally, during the fifteenth
century the church was again rebuilt, to take on the form that survived
up to 1942.[88,90]
St. Giles on the Hill is the
tallest parish church in Norwich at 34 metres and on top of that it stands
on the highest point within the old city walls. In fact in terms of
height above sea level it is as high as the anglican cathedral. The
present church dates from the 1420s apart from a few minor additions in
subsequent centuries. It replaced a previous St Giles which was built
on the site in 1136, but there appears to have been a church on the
site even before that (it's mentioned in the Domesday Book). The
dedication is to the patron saint of the poor and
marginalized, which may connect with the presence of a leper house just
outside St. Giles Gate. Unlike most of the Norwich churches, St Giles
remains today a functioning anglican church. After the Norman conquest
it was one of the three large parishes forming the French Borough, the
richest part of Norwich.[88,91,92,93]
St
Simon & St Jude stands on the corner of Wensum & Elm
streets.
It is in the heart of Norwich and within 200 metres of 5 other churches
and literally across the road from the cathedral. No surprise that the
past century has been unkind to it. Regular services ceased in 1894,
but for a short
while after that it was used for a Sunday School, and the patronal
festival was celebrated annually until 1920. By that time decay had
already set in and the church had become smothered with ivy. In
1911 the tower collapsed and by the 1930s it had been abandoned, an ivy
covered- ruin, rapidly returning to earth. Plans to demolish the church
in the 1930's were discarded thanks to the activities of the Norwich
Society who raised money to have the church partially restored. In
1952 it was leased to the Boy Scouts
Association for use as a shop. Rather drastic modifications were made
inside to provide more rooms, but fortunately they were all
independent of the structure and could be removed. The Scouts vacated
the site in 1997 and in the decade since then the Norwich Historic
Churches trust has been restoring the church, inside and out.
Restoration was due to be completed in 2008 and the church leased to a
dance academy. A
church on the site is recorded in the Domesday Bookand it was the
Bishop’s own church before the See moved to Norwich in 1094. It was
rebuilt in its present form during the 15th century, the now lost tower
being begun in 1446. Notable residents in the parish during the 1600's
were the Pettus family who produced several mayors for the city of
Norwich. The family produced several knights during the 1600's.[88,94,95]
Edward Greenwood's home in (or near) the aprish in the early 1700's was
obviously then a considerable step up in the world from the family's
early decades in Norwich!
The
Church of St Nicholas in Great Yarmouth, which is the
largest parish church in England (it's actually larger than some
cathedrals), was founded in 1101 by Herbert de Losinga,
the first bishop of Norwich, and consecrated in 1119. It is cruciform,
with a central tower, which perhaps preserves a part of the original
structure, but by successive alterations the form of the church has
been completely changed. It continues to operate today ay the parish
church for Great Yarmouth. The building is sited in the central area of
Great Yarmouth and has a graveyard stretching over a kilometre to the
north. St.
Nicholas' reflects the essence of medieval Yarmouth as a
town reliant on the sea and its harvest. Dedicated to the patron saint
of sailors and others who earn their livelihood from the sea, it was
built to
replace an earlier church believed to have been created to serve the
local and visiting fishermen. During the Medieval period the
church was at its most
magnificent with stained glass, tapestries, painted and gilded walls,
frescos, 19 chapels, various relics of the saints and ornate
furnishings. At this time Great Yarmouth was the fourth richest town in
England. Attached to the church was a priory which operated as the
Priory School after the reformation and is now a cafe. The church was heavily
"vandalised" by the Puritans - the ornamental brasses were cast
into
weights and the gravestones cut into grindstones, the chapels were all
demolished and the valuable
utensils disposed of.
Even worse, brick walls were built inside the church separating it into
three so that the puritans, presbyterians and Church of Englanders
could simultaneously worship. {Talk about bedlam!} The puritans levied a tax on the
townsfolk to pay for the
vandalism (the money from the "giant garage sale" naturally enuf
vanished elsewhere). Restorations in the 1800's
finally removed the brick walls and restored much of the architecture
to the pre-puritan state. In 1942 the church was
completely gutted during a German air raid leaving only the Norman
tower and the walls standing. The church was rebuilt on its
medieval plan and re-consecrated in 1961.[96,97,98]
Norwich
Castle, Norwich, Co Norfolk (1100) Image - Rural
Rides
Great Yarmouth is a coastal town
in Norfolk and lies at the mouth of the River Yare. The town itself is on a thin
sand spit sandwiched between the North Sea and Yare. Yarmouth (Gernemwa, Yernemuth)
lies near the site of the Roman
camp of "Gariannonum" at the mouth of the River Yare. Tradition has the first
settlement there established by the Saxon leader, Cerdic, c.495. More certain is that silting in
the mouth of the "Great Estuary"
over time formed a huge sandbank that came to be several miles long,
leaving the Yare access into the sea through two channels at either end
of the sandbank. This sandbank eventually
became firm enough to support dwellings, perhaps preceded by more
temporary facilities for the drying, salting and smoking of herring, as
well as the sale of herring. A
fair may have been in operation there by the time of Edward the
Confessor. There
were 70 burgesses living in Yarmouth in 1066 according to
the Domesday Book, which suggests that its fishery was already
important by then and the town probably totalled a few hundred
residents. There was one church in 1066 - St Benedict's. The town received a charter from
King John in 1208. In
the medieval mind, Yarmouth was associated with herring, a
high-protein food important to the diet of the lower classes. The
thirteenth century seal of
the borough bore depictions of a ship sailing herring-inhabited waters
and, on the other side, St. Nicholas, a patron saint of fishermen. The
fishery provided the reason for Yarmouth's foundation and the principal
source of its medieval economy. During World War I Great
Yarmouth suffered the first aerial
bombardment in the UK. The town suffered bombing during World War II
but much is left of the
old town, including the original 2000m protective mediaeval wall, of
which two-thirds has survived. Of the 18 towers, 11 are left. On the
South Quay, there is a 17th century Merchant's House, as well as Tudor,
Georgian and Victorian buildings. Behind South Quay, there is a maze of
alleys and lanes known as "The Rows". Originally there were 145.
Despite war damage and post-war reconstruction, several have remained. The Tollhouse, with dungeons,
dates from the late 13th century and is said to be the oldest civic
building in Britain. The Market place is one of the
largest in England, and has been operating since the 13th century. In
addition to its history as a fishing port, Great Yarmouth has been a
seaside resort since 1760 (it even has a real sand beach) and today it
services offshore oil rigs. Yarmouth is famous for its "Rows", a series
of passages – too narrow to be called streets – separating the medieval
tenements; by the end of the Middle Ages there were some 150 of them.
The close packing of buildings, with only narrow streets separating the
rows of houses, was not unusual in medieval towns, although the extent
to which this was applied in Yarmouth is quite unusual. This system of
laying out the land-holdings of the townsmen is evidenced as early as
1198, and continued into the thirteenth; most rows were named after
some prominent family residing there. The rows all ran east-west
(between the river and the shore), while the few main streets of the
town ran north-south.[108,109]
Burnham
Market postmill stood in the small village that comprised of Burnham,
Ulph and Sutton that was on the east side of Burnham Westgate that
later became known as Burnham Market. The mill was in Norton Lane,
which was formerly known as Bellamy Lane (after the miller William
Bellamy). It is probable that the mill was built as an open trestle
mill with common sails but in later years it stood over a roundhouse
and had clockwise rotating patent sails and a fantail carriage on a
tailpole. The sails powered a single pair of 5ft stones in 1835 and 2
pairs of French burr stones and a flour cylinder in 1891, one pair of
stones being 4ft 8ins and the other pair 3ft. A horse mill was operated
in the flour house. The mill was sited not far from All Saints church.
In 1772 the rector was the Rev. Edmund Nelson, the father of Horatio
Nelson.[46] The mill itself does not remain today.
Remaining is
a brick shed, original purpose unknown, but now apparently serving as a
garage or garden shed, plus a row of cottages, one or more of which no
doubt was the home of Erasmus & Frances, another the residence
of
their assistant. Although
Burnham
Market is the largest of the Burnhams, it is not a historic parish, and
in many ways it was an invention of the railway companies of the 19th
century, who put one of their stations where three of the Burnhams had
grown together - Burnhams Sutton, Ulph and Westgate. Sutton's church
was lost in the 18th century, but those of Ulph and Westgate survived
at either end of the green. Curiously, 'Ulph' comes from the Old
English word for a wolf. Perhaps it was the name of one of the local
warlords. All Saints is a rather simple and plain church, a towerless
Norman church, extensively Victorianised with the replacement of
virtually all the windows.[104] From the perspective it
would appear that Erasmus' gravestone is behind the photographer of the
picture of the church.
Thoroughfare
Yard, Norwich Image -Image - Old
Norwich
Thoroughfare
Yard, Norwich Image -Image - Old
Norwich
2-10
Calvert Street, Norwich Image -Image - Old
Norwich
St Clement stands at
the point where
medieval and modern Norwich meet; to the south is the cathedral
precinct, while to the north is the industrial heart of Norwich. The
church was declared redundant in the 1960's but was saved from
demolition by
a local Methodist minister, Jack Burton, who leased the church on behalf of
the Norwich transport workers trade union, partly with the intention of
its use as a chapel. Whilst Rev Burton has since retired, he retains
the lease and the church continues to operate as a chapel, freely open to the public for
private prayer every day. The
only service which is now formally held in the church is the Parker
service, which was commissioned by Matthew Parker, who left funds for
the benefit of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, subject to the annual
service been held at St Clement. Parker, who became Archbishop of
Canterbury in the reign of Elizabeth 1st, was educated by the rector of
St Clements. For his various "investigative activities" he was given
the epithet "nosey parker" - a description still in use
today. St
Clements’s was built close to Fye Bridge, the river crossing of the
major historic north-south axis of the City. It is thought to be Saxon
in origin and to have been one of the first in the City erected on the
north side of the river. It probably dated from around 1040, although
no evidence from this period is visible. The present church is almost
entirely the work of the 15th century, although the chancel is slightly
earlier. The
church is still contains all the internal furnishings from when it was
decommissioned in the 1960's. These date from the 19th century, a time
when St Clement's congregation was almost wholly drawn from the local
tenements and slums that housed industrial workers.[106,107]
This gives a clue to the conditions Benjamin Greenwood & his
family
were living in. St Clement's stands near the corner of Colgate
&
Magdalene Streets and its parish likely included the southern part of
Magdalene Street, Fye Bridge Street, the eastern part of Colegate
Street and possibly the southern part of Calvert Street. Thoroughfare
Yard was probably a minute or two walk from St Clement.
Living
space was very much at a premium in early 17th-century Great Yarmouth,
then among the most prosperous fishing ports in England. Hence the
inhabitants crowded into the town's distinctive 'Rows', a network of
narrow alleyways linking Yarmouth's three main thoroughfares. Most 'Row
houses' were damaged by World War II bombing or demolished during
post-War clearances. Row 138 was variously called Union Row and Dog
& Duck Row and stretched from South Quay to Middlegate Street.
On
one corner was a cut‑flint fronted house dating back to 1591 and on the
other the "Dog and Duck", a well known Quay Tavern, which lent it's
name to the row. The tavern had a sign of a dog chasing a duck in the
water. At the other end was a house which for many years was the
property and residence of William Danby Palmer Esq. On a complaint that
the property was haunted, Mr. Palmer had it pulled down and a new
residence erected on the site. Nearby was found the crypt, photographed
above.[106,107]
St
Stephen's is a rather unusual looking church, chaotic even, a building
that has been cobbled together. From the outside it looks a bit like
the Coliseum with a tower stuck on the side. There are suggestions
that early on there was a 2nd tower on the other side, but it did
exist, it did not last for long. It was one of the three churches of
the new French Borough. The earliest part of the church dates to 1522.
There was a church here in the 14th century, and the ground plan was
probably similar. What we see today externally is almost all the work
of the early 16th century. St Stephen's is still a functioning Anglican
church today.[102,103] Castle Ditches, now known as Castle Meadow, was
originally the moat of Norwich Castle. Over the years it had become an
unofficial rubbish dump. In the early 1700's the area was converted
into cattle markets. Inns and pubs soon followed and the district had
more pubs than Norwich had churches! St Stephen Street (running NE to
SW) and Ber Street (running more or less NS), both heading more of
less towards the castle, almost intersect in the southern part of
Norwich & are connected by Westlegate.[88] It
would thus
seem that Robert stayed in the same general part of Norwich that he had
been baptised, at least up until 1851. Robert's 2nd wife, Charlotte,
ended up in St Clement's parish, which is in the north of Norwich,
north of the river. Whether Robert & Charlotte moved there
sometime
after 1851 or Charlotte moved there after Robert died is unknown.
Bethel
Hospital was established in 1713 as the Infirmary & Bethel
Asylum
for the treatment of patients with mental illness. It was until
recently the oldest surviving hospital in the country specifically
founded for the care of the mentality ill and the oldest
building
in the UK to have been in continuous psychiatric use. After 1974 when
the in-patient facilities were closed, it continued as the Centre for
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry but finally closed in 1994 and has been
converted to residential and office units.[100] "Occupies a commodious
building in Bethel St, was erected in 1713, by Mrs Mary Chapman,
agreeably to the request of her late husband, the Rev S Chapman, rector
of Thorpe next Norwich, for the habitation of poor lunatics, &
not
for natural born fools or idiots. For its endowment, she settled, by
will dated 1717, all her personal estate on 7 trustees, giving to them
the sole power & management of this asylum for as many
distressed
lunatics as the revenues will afford, the city of Norwich always to
have the preference. Considerable additions having been made to the
hospital in 1807, & subsequent years, it has now accommodations
for
70 patients, of whom about 35 are free, & small weekly sums,
varying from 3s. to 8s. are paid for each of the others by their
friends or parishes."[101] I have been unable to find any
other reference to "Old
Blk Bay Yard" on Colegate Street other than the 1851 census reference.
Could it have been a miss-transcription of Old Black boys Yard? Black
Boys was a merchant's tavern that faced onto nearby
Calvert Street. In the early 1800's Black Boys Yard contained several
residences and a music school.[88]
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