Burnham Market


Burnham Market is an English village and civil parish near the north coast of Norfolk. Burnham Market is one of the Burnhams, a group of adjacent villages. It results from a merger of three original villages: Burnham Sutton, Burnham Ulph and Burnham Westgate.

Geography

Burnham Market is about inland, about west of Wells-next-the-Sea, north-east of Hunstanton and north of Fakenham. The smaller villages of Burnham Deepdale and Burnham Norton are within to the west and north of Burnham Market, whilst Burnham Overy and Burnham Thorpe are a similar distance to the east. North Creake is about to the south. The larger town of King's Lynn is to the south-west and the city of Norwich is to the south-east.
The civil parish has an area of 18.43 km2 and in the 2001 census had a population of 948 in 496 households, decreasing to 877 at the 2011 Census. For purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of King's Lynn and West Norfolk.
Burnham Market is close to the mouth of the River Burn and the name Burnham probably derives from this. However another theory is that the town was a centre for the amber trade. As the name implies, historically Burnham had a market and was therefore considered a town, however that market was discontinued several years before 1854. Today Burnham Market is more normally considered a village, albeit one slightly larger and considerably busier than its immediate neighbours.
The village was served until 1952 by a railway originally built as the West Norfolk Junction Railway. It connected Burnham Market to the east with Holkham and Wells-next-the-Sea, and to the west with several intermediate stations and a junction at Heacham with the line between Hunstanton and Kings Lynn. The station was located on the road to North Creake, south of the village centre. The main station building and platform still exist.

Governance

Burnham is the name of the electoral ward which covers all the Norfolk Burnhams and surrounding areas. The total population at the 2011 census was 1,714.

Burnham Westgate Hall

is a Grade II* listed Georgian country house, built in 1783–1785 by Sir John Soane, for Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford. It was a remodelling of the original Polstede Hall, which had been built in the 1750s by Matthew Brettingham for Pitt's father-in-law, Pinckney Wilkinson, MP for Old Sarum. In 1783, Wilkinson gave the house to his daughter, Anne, on her marriage to Pitt.
In 1808, the Hall was purchased by Sir Mordaunt Martin.
In 1933, the house passed to the Royal British Legion. After World War II, it was used as an old people's home until 1990. Recently it has been the home of Baroness Rawlings.

Novelists

The novelist sisters Anne Elliot and Emma were living in Burnham Sutton by 1901. Anne Elliot died there in 1941.

Churches

The village has two Church of England parish churches. The larger is St Mary's at the west end of the marketplace. All Saints' is at the eastern end of the village. A third parish church near Burnham Market is St Margaret's. This is in the neighbouring parish of Burnham Norton. Its benefice was joined with St Mary's to form the new ecclesiastical parish of Burnham Market in 2012. The former churches, with the parishes of Burnham Overy and Burnham Thorpe, form the single benefice, the Burnhams Benefice.
There are two other places of worship in the village: a Roman Catholic church dedicated to St Henry Walpole, and a Methodist church. The former Gospel Hall was put up for sale in 2015.