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West Newton
West Newton maps
Historic maps of West Newton and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all West Newton maps
West Newton photos
We have no photos of West Newton, although we do have photos of these nearby places:
Sandringham| Dersingham| Wolferton| Castle Rising| Ingoldisthorpe| North Wootton| Snettisham| Gayton| Gaywood| Great Bircham| Kings Lynn| Houghton
West Newton area books
Displaying 1 of 13 books about West Newton and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of West Newton
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Norfolk memories
Memories From My Father Tom Ebert Who Was Evacuated to Dersingham From Poplar During WW2
My first recollection of Dersingham was as a seven year old boy in 1941.
My mother, sister and I were evacuated from the East End of London during the blitz and arrived, after a long train journey, at the Station Hotel one late afternoon which was owned then by a Mr and Mrs Parminter. After some tea and sandwiches we were billeted on a retired couple, a Mr and Mrs Bush who lived in White Horse Drive, long before the council houses were built opposite.
The official procedure then was that anybody who had room to spare in their houses had to take in evacuees. No ifs or buts - if you had a spare room or two you ended up with evacuees. No doubt those and such as those who could drop a word in the right place never had to open their doors, but that's another story. This draconian ruling, as you can imagine, caused resentment amongst those people who had to take in these unwanted lodgers. I... Read more
Dersingham 1954 C
We lived in the village shop Virginia Stores owned by Peatling & Cawdron. My dad won the Vernons Football Pools in 1955 a great sum of £505.6s, my sister and I had new bikes, and mum and dad went for a holiday to Blackpool! with her new fur coat. We moved to Brancaster after that when they bought the pub there.
I remember going to Sandringham with the school to sing carols at Christmas and winning prizes at the flower show for handwriting and needlework,
walking through the woods picking chestnuts and ducking when the Royal family rode past on horseback, the Queen Mother coming to the school and watching out for her driving an old shooting break around the village and
running through the church yard at dusk frightened silly by the bats that swooped around but not daring to be scared in front of our friends.
Kennedy
It's said everyone remembers where they were when President Kennedy was shot, I certainly do. I was at this spot coming from Snettisham when it came on the car radio. The picture of the church with the old barns is great as I was a boarder at the old vicarage further up the road, walked past the Manor Hotel (now gone after a fire) and showed school films in the village hall near the pond. Walked miles around the country lanes, especially the then main road to Heacham through Snettisham.
Tiny Post Office.
Mr and Mrs Raines ran a postal service from this tiny shed at the bottom of their garden in 1908. The village was of course much smaller then: there were only four large families and no more than a dozen cottages. In the late 1940s the post office moved to a building in the main street. Later, the shed was used to house chickens before finally rotting away.
Park House Farm
My wife and I spent one year ( circa 1953 ) living in an apartment at Park House Farm where Tony Warner raised sugar beets and pigs. The Manor House was built on a Roman foundation which then formed the basement of the building. I was stationed at Sculthorpe AFB in Fakenham. I joined the local rifle team in Snettisham sponsored by the Queen's husband, Prince Philip. Their residence, Sandringham, was within walking distance. When our team won a major match, Prince Phillip gave me a basket of fruit and invited me to go shooting with him. While living there the ploughman dug up a golden torque that now resides in the British Museum. I did some digging in the field in back of the Manor House myself and found a few Saxon odds and ends but I didn't go deep enough. A few years later an RAF officer went over the same area with a metal detector and found the Snettisham Treasure. Great town, great experience. My... Read more
Happy Days
Walked along the paths many times, and on the bus to school which was at Ingoldisthorpe a very good photo?
The Old Hall
My father was in the US Air Force and we rented an apartment from Lady Stickland in the Old Hall. I went to the local school and was asked to play Snow White in the pantomime. We were in Snettisham when President Kennedy was assasinated. My father came to my class in his uniform and took me out of school for the day. It was the first time I ever saw him cry. I remember the old church at the top of the hill and a field where a horse named Peggy was kept. I was 8 years old and it was a facinating place to grow up. I would love to go back someday.
