Fritton Parish

Fritton
Freton or Fridetuna

Robert Fulcher gave lands in this parish to the Priory of Wymondham. In the year 1374, Sir John de Mauteby, son of Sir John, was buried before the altar of St. Mary, in the parish church of Fritton St. Edmund, where he lived.

In 1413, Robert Mauteby, Esq., enfeoffed Sir Miles Stapleton, Sir Simon Felbrigge, Sir William Argentien, and others, in this lordship; with divers manors in Norfolk, to fulfill his will, made in the same year.

This lordship afterwards became vested in the Sydnor family, from whom it passed to the Aliens, and subsequently became the estate of Richard Fuller: it was lately the possession of A. G. Johnstone, Esq., who resides here.

Caldecot Hall, to which is annexed a manor, the property of the President and Scholars of Magdalen College, Oxford, is now occupied as a farm house.

The chancel of this parish church, with its circular termination, and groined stone roof, is perhaps unique in this county. The east window is lancet shaped, and enclosed within a semicircular arch, with zigzag moldings.¹ The chancel gives a perfect specimen of Saxon architecture, unquestionably of the highest antiquity. The tower, which is round, low, and unembattled, is supposed to be of Danish construction.

This parish has been long celebrated for its spacious decoy, a fine fresh water lake, of more than two miles in length, and in some places of a considerable breadth: its banks, fringed with woods, vallies, and glades, are highly picturesque. Captain Manby, the ingenuous inventor of the apparatus for preserving the lives of shipwrecked seamen, has a neat sporting cottage on the verge of this decoy.

CHARITIES. The poor's allotment here contains 14A. 2R. 38p.; and the rents, £12 12s. a year, are laid out in coals, which are given to the poor.

1. An etching of this church is given in Davy's "Architectural Antiquities of Suffolk."

 

County of Suffolk

Topographical and Genealogical, The County of Suffolk, 1844, Augustine Page

British Isles Genealogy

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