Gresham, Norfolk
| Gresham | |
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 The Gresham village sign, dated 1978, surmounted by the grasshopper which is the crest of the Gresham family |
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 Gresham
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| Gresham shown within Norfolk | |
| Area | 8.69 km2 (3.36 sq mi) |
| Population | 401 (Including East Beckton. 2011 census) |
| • Density | 46/km2 (120/sq mi) |
| OS grid reference | TG167385 |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | NORWICH |
| Postcode district | NR11 |
| Police | Norfolk |
| Fire | Norfolk |
| Ambulance | East of England |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
| UK Parliament | |
Gresham is a village and civil parish in North Norfolk, England, five miles (8 km) south-west of Cromer.
A predominantly rural parish, Gresham centres on its medieval church of All Saints. The village also once had a square 14th century castle, a watermill and a windmill. The moat and some ruins of the castle survive.
The name of Gresham is derived from a local stream known as the Gur Beck, plus -ham, meaning a settlement.
In the Domesday Book of 1086, Gresham is recorded as one of the holdings of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey.
Sir Edmund Bacon of Baconsthorpe held the manor. After his death in 1336 or 1337, there was much fighting over his property, which included the manor of Gresham. A William Moleyns married Bacon's daughter Margery and tried unsuccessfully to deprive John Burghersh, the son of Bacon's other daughter and heiress Margaret, of his inheritance. A partition of Bacon's property was made between his heirs in the 35th year of King Edward III, and when the division between Moleyns and Burghersh was complete, Gresham went to Margery, who died in 1399. She granted Gresham to Sir Philip Vache for nine years after her death, but in 1414 his widow still held it and Sir William Moleyns agreed to buy it from Margery's executors for 920 marks. He held it for two years, but did not complete the payment. The manor then fell into a complicated contract for the future marriage of Moleyns's daughter Katherine which did not take place, and Thomas Chaucer (c. 1367–1434), Speaker of the House of Commons, and the son of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, acquired the manor of Gresham and sold it to William Paston. (Thomas Chaucer was married to a granddaughter of Maud Bacon, almost certainly another daughter of Edmund Bacon.) However, Robert Hungerford, Lord Moleyns, then claimed it and seized it by force.
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