Terrington St Clement

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Terrington St Clement
Terrington St Clement shown within Norfolk
Population	3,902 ^[1]
OS grid reference	TF548199
District	King's Lynn and West Norfolk
Shire county	Norfolk
Region	East
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	KING'S LYNN
Postcode district	PE34
Dialling code	01553
Police	Norfolk
Fire	Norfolk
Ambulance	East of England
European Parliament	East of England
UK Parliament	North West Norfolk
List of places: UK • England • Norfolk

Coordinates: 52°45′17″N 0°17′41″E / 52.754603, 0.294788

Terrington St Clement is a large village in Norfolk, in the UK. It is situated in the drained marshlands to the south of The Wash, 7 miles west of King's Lynn, Norfolk, and 5 miles east of Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire, on the old route of the A17 trunk road. The parish covers an area of seventeen square miles, nearly 4,450 hectares (11,000 acres). Much of the farm land is of alluvial silt and clay which has been reclaimed from the sea amounting to approximately half of the total parish area.

Terrington Parish Church

Terrington St Clement has grown substantially and is reputed to be the largest village in Norfolk^[2].

1 Village Life
2 History
3 Famous People
4 References
5 External Links

[edit] Village Life

Terrington St Clement has a wide selection of amenities, including a supermarket, farm shop, two doctor's surgeries, a post office, newsagents, Indian restaurant and takeaway, fish & chip shop, pizza parlour, hairdressers and two estate agents in addition to the well-known Marshland Stores, a traditional hardware store with a very large range of products. It also has a village hall, scout hut, and two pubs, The King William and The Wildfowler, both of which serve food.

The village is linked to King's Lynn and Spalding, Lincolnshire by a half-hourly bus service, and to Wisbech by a less frequent bus service that skirts the south of the village.

Terrington St Clement has state run primary and secondary schools. The secondary school was the centre of some press attention, firstly when its erstwhile head, Richard Wealthall, was singled out for praise and a visit from Prime Minister Tony Blair, and again subsequently when Mr Wealthall was found to have been guilty of bullying and nepotism.^[3] Meanwhile, the primary school has also attracted some unwanted press attention when it was placed into special measures in 2007 by Ofsted.^[4]

[edit] History

In AD 970 Godric gifted part of the lands of Turrintonea to the monks of Ramsey Abbey. The name Terrington comes from the early Saxon “Tun” meaning enclosure or homestead of Tir(a)s people. The settlement is referred to in the Domesday Book as Tilinghetuna.

By the medieval period the small settlement which began on raised ground on the edge of the marsh had grown substantially. The magnificent Parish Church, dedicated to St Clement (i.e. Pope Clement I), known as the "Cathedral of the Marshland", was built in the 14th century by Edmund Gonville, Rector of Terrington, who founded Gonville Hall (now Gonville and Caius College) at Cambridge University.

Methodists arrived in the village in 1813 and during the Victorian era the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel [1] and Primitive Methodist Chapel were established along with a Salvation Army headquarters and 3 other mission chapels. A lively shopping centre had developed by the beginning of the 20th century, but most of the independent traders have now disappeared, along with all but two of the village's pubs.

There was once a Terrington railway station serving the settlement, but this is now closed.

[edit] Famous People

Edmund Gonville, rector of the parish, 1342-51.

Terrington St Clement is also the birthplace of the legendary socialite, 'Richard Wilkin' (AKA Dickman). He was born in the village in 1746 and died there 1783. He was known up and down the lands during that time in somewhat mythical status partly due to his habit of exposing himself whenever around Goats!