HEDENHAM

by Maureen Long

A new sign for Hedenham, Norfolk, was unveiled
to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
It stands outside the Community Centre, just past the Mermaid Inn, on the B1332 Bungay to Norwich road. It is an attractive sign set into a solid brick plinth, topped with cobblestones set into the cement. My only criticism is that it is rather difficult to photograph since the sign stands higher than the road and rather difficult to get it all in at close quarters. The road is quite narrow there. However, all sign enthusiasts do their best and many of you already have good shots of this sign, depicting a mermaid holding a large Roman pot.
The place name is big and bold ,arched over the top, and means ‘homestead of a man called Hedena’.
The nearby Mermaid hostelry is an old staging coach inn, and was counted as eleven mile stages out of Norwich. A mermaid was the crest of the Garney family, arising from ‘a mermaid attiring herself in the sea, proper’.. The family , along with later the Richmonds and the Bedingfields, were early benefactors of the village, which straddles the road as it has done since Roman times, linking Bungay and Caister. So the pottery jar the mermaid holds is Roman and also records the fact that a Roman kiln was discovered close to the road here in 1858. The population of 100 is about the same as in Norman times and the village is on a rich seam of clay ideal for brick-making. it is almost certain that bricks were made here for both Caister and Bungay Castle strongholds. Brick-making continued here until the last century.
The Norman Conquest found the village given to the nephew of the Conqueror. The church is on the old pack-horse route and the earliest recorded Rector was in 1245, but there was probably an earlier building. The Church and the Hall, with its ancient chimneys and roof tiles, tell of the rich history of Hedenham.
Today the village is more famous for its Garden Sunday, which attracts people from all over the country and which started off with seven gardens opened to the public in aid of Church funds, called Seven Gardens for Sunday. The rich soil has always been kind to gardeners and the gardens around the inn were famous in the past for both prize strawberries and roses.