Eccles, Norfolk

Description
Eccles, a parish in Norfolk, surrounding the Eccles Road station on the G.E.R., and 2 1/2 miles NE from Harling. It has a post and money order office under Attleborough; telegraph office, Quidenham. Acreage, 1773; population, 216. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Norwich; net yearly value, £136 with residence, in the gift of Hertford College, Oxford. The church is an ancient building of flint and stucco in the Early English style. Eccles Hall is a chief residence. At a spot called Gallows Hill, just north of the station, a man named Ayerst is said to have been burned for his religion early in Henry VIII.'s reign. He was one of the latest of the Lollards, or one of the first of the Protestant martyrs. Eccles or Eccles-next-the-Sea, a village and a parish in Norfolk, on the coast, 9 miles ESE of North Walsham, 18 NE of Norwich, and 3 NE from Stalham station on the Eastern and Midland railway. Post town, Norwich; money order and telegraph office, Stalham. The area of the parish, which was originally 2000 acres, has been reduced by the encroachments of the sea to 297 ; population, 18. The living is a sinecure rectory in the diocese of Norwich; value, o£59. The church was destroyed by the sea before 1605, but the tower still stands on the beach, and is surrounded by the se.a at high tides.