Foulsham is located 7.40 miles (11.91km) north-east of Dereham and 16 miles (26km) north-west of Norwich. Foulsham is renowned in the local area for its unspoilt nature and the number of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century buildings.[citation needed]
Foulsham name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and derives from the Old English for Fugol's homestead or village.[3]
Foulsham has been the site of major Bronze Age discoveries including a golden torc ploughed-up in 1846[4] and a hoard of 141 copper-socketed axeheads, discovered in 1953 and now in the care of Norwich Castle Museum.[5]
In the Domesday Book, Foulsham is listed as a settlement of 103 households in the hundred of Eynesford. In 1086, the village was part of the East Anglian estates of King William I. The worth of Foulsham is recorded as two churches, a mill, twelve cattle, four hundred pigs, fifty goats and 13 sesters of honey.[6]
In the Seventeenth Century, Foulsham was a thriving market place until a store of gunpowder exploded on the 15 June 1770 which led to a fire that consumed the whole market place.[8]
According to the 2021 census, Foulsham has a population of 1,028 people which shows an increase from the 1,021 people recorded in the 2011 census.[10]
Church of the Holy Innocents
Foulsham's parish church is dedicated to the Holy Innocents and dates from the Fourteenth Century. The church is located within the village on Hindolveston Road and has been Grade I listed since 1961.[11] The Church of the Holy Innocents is still holds services on Sundays and remains open during the week.[12]
The church was severely damaged by an explosion and fire in 1770 but was heavily restored in the Victorian era. Inside the church is a Sixteenth Century font and some fragments of Fifteenth Century stained-glass.[13]
Amenities
Foulsham still has a public house, known as the Queen's Head, which has operated on its current site since the mid-Nineteenth Century.[14]
The majority of local children attend Foulsham Primary School, which was rated as 'Good' by Ofsted in 2020.[15]
Foulsham War Memorial is a stone obelisk above an octagonal plinth, located in an island on Foulsham High Street. The memorial was funded by a committee led by Mr. E. Holley and was unveiled in October 1920 by R-Adm. Sir Harry Stileman KBE.[18] The memorial lists the following names for the First World War:[19]
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