Since early 2020, Forncett History Group has published regular short articles in the village magazine, the Forncett Flyer. These articles have now been collected here on our new blog - Forncett History Notes. This blog offers the opportunity for these articles, and other news from the Group, to be read more widely and also provides a forum for us to publish short articles which don't fit easily elsewhere within the structure of the website. Please share this new page with anyone who you feel might be interested. If you would like to be added to our email distribution list please Contact Us and then you will receive an alert when any new article appears.
Having lived in Forncett for nearly thirty years, I've always spelled our village's name with two "t"s. However, some recent research about an old Forncett family taught me that this wasn't always the case!
As I write this article there is talk of possible light snowfall here in Forncett next week but, as global temperatures continue to rise, then the chances of serious snowfall here in Norfolk seem to be rapidly disappearing. White Christmases are really not that common, even though to qualify, there needs to be just a single snowflake falling on...
You may be as surprised as I was to learn that the rural village of Forncett was bombed by the Germans in both World Wars! Nevertheless, "The Bombing of Forncett" was the subject of Philip Yull's interesting and well-attended talk to the History Group at our October meeting.
The photographs in my article in August were taken by the Norwich photographer, Tom Nokes, who chronicled much of life in the villages of South Norfolk from around 1891 until 1926. Living in Norwich, Tom travelled around the villages of South Norfolk by bicycle and then developed his photos in a shed at the end of his garden!...
At the September meeting of Forncett History Group, David Kirk, from Wreningham Heritage Group, gave an excellent illustrated talk on the life of Rev. John William Colenso. Colenso is best known for his time as Bishop of Natal in South Africa from 1853 until his death in 1883 but he served as rector of Forncett St Mary from 1846 to 1853. ...
This article is a little different from my normal blogs, as it relates to the present as well as the past! Since 2019, the Friends of St. Peters, an amazingly dedicated group of volunteers in Forncett, have been working to raise funds to save the magnificent St. Peter's church in Forncett, said by many to...
As I write this, our summer weather continues to be cool and wet and we can only hope that August will bring a warm, sunny month. However, for the residents of Forncett, the August of 1912 brought some of the worst flooding ever seen in Norfolk.
St. Edmund's church in Forncett End has just celebrated its 120th birthday. At the beginning of the 20th Century the settlement of Forncett End was growing rapidly and as St. Peter's parish church was 2 miles away, it was decided to build a chapel of ease close to the New Buckenham - Norwich turnpike. The chapel was dedicated to...
For our May meeting, the History Group visited Forncett Industrial Steam Museum at the kind invitation of its founder, Rowan Francis. In the course of the evening Rowan took us around the museum and used the exhibits to tell us the story of the development of industrial steam from 1698 to 2024. Whilst there are other steam...
In January this year I wrote a History Note entitled "A poet in the churchyard" that related to one of the four magnificent stained-glass windows at St. Peter's church. Another of the windows, the Thorsby window, is in the North Aisle of the church and was installed in 1883. This window shows Saints Simeon and Anna and is "...