East Barsham, The Manor House c.1965

Photo ref: E147003

My only recollection of East Barsham was in 1961 when my then boyfriend, now husband of nearly 50 years, drove past the gate and pointed out "Thats where mother was born". Since then I have visited East Barsham a couple of times, taken photos from the gate, on return to Norfolk from New Zealand where we now live. I have been very involved in Ancestry since 2008, only last year ...see more

You may like to know that I today attended the funeral of the chatelaine of The Manor, Lady Valerie Guinness. After the war my father Peter bought the rectory at Sculthorpe about three miles from East Barsham and the house where he was born. His father had been the rector there for the early years of the last century. Val North was daughter of Roger and Pam North of Rougham; we grew up together, born ...see more

I actually lived in West Barsham and attended the primary School in East Barsham from September 1930 to July 1937. The walk to the village school took me past the Manor House, which always looked dark and forbidding, shrouded as it was in the massive beech tres that grew behind the wall, bordering the main road. No one that I knew had ever been inside the wall, and I had no idea what the grounds ...see more

The 1929 photograph was taken when my stepfather's father, Douglas J Coleman owned it. His father, Edward J. Coleman, bought it in 1915, the year my stepfather was born. This is where he (Peter Hales-Coleman) and his brother grew up. The family moved from there in the early 1930s. Back then, there were more than a 1000 acres of land with it. In 1959, I had the opportunity to visit the ...see more