Long Stratton
Long Stratton is a large village and civil parish in Norfolk, England. It consisted of two villages, it is home to a substantial population of 4,424. South Norfolk Council have their headquarters in the village, located central to the district; the village is situated halfway between the county town and the market town of Diss. Long Stratton borders five other parishes: Tharston and Hapton, Tasburgh and Fritton, Pulham Market, Wacton. One of the ancient parishes that make up the modern village of Long Stratton was served by St Michael's church, whose rector from 1779 to 1823, Francis Wickham Swanton, was an Oxford contemporary of the celebrated Parson James Woodforde; the Blennerhasett family prominent in the Plantation of Ulster, were Lords of the Manor in the sixteenth century. The church contains a rare example of a Sexton's wheel; the only other example in the country is claimed to be at Suffolk. Long Stratton has two Church of England churches, as well as a Methodist church; the church of Long Stratton St Mary is one of 124 existing round-tower churches in Norfolk.
The village was struck by an F1/T2 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day. According to the 2001 United Kingdom Census, Long Stratton CP was home to 3,701 people, who resided in a total of 1,598 dwellings; the statistics further confirm that Long Stratton is used as a commuter village, with the average employed person travelling 17.25 miles to their place of work. The population increased to 4,424 by 2011 and is continuing to grow with considerable housing development taking place as of 2018. Long Stratton is part of the electoral ward of Stratton; this ward had a population of 5,519 at the 2011 census. There is a parish council and it has been agreed that the status of town is to be adopted with the first elections to the new 13-member town council on 2 May 2019; the Area Action Plan, a planning document, envisages a town centre to develop together with the planned increase in residents and the completion of a by-pass. There has been cause for the building of a bypass around Long Stratton for over 60 years.
Builders of the new "Churchfields" housing estate to the east of the village proposed to build a bypass as part of the submission for planning permission in the mid-1990s, though this was rejected by the Highways Agency on the grounds that the planned road was not of a sufficiently high standard to redesignate it as part of the main A140 Trunk Road. 2006 was supposed to bring about the construction of the new bypass by Norfolk County Council, who had assumed responsibility for the A140 from the Highways Agency in 2001. There was considerable opposition to the bypass on either side of the A140, by residents of the village of Tharston to the west, those of the hamlet of Wood Green Common to the east, it was decided that a bypass to the east would have less environmental impact. The total cost of the three miles stretch of dual carriageway, with a roundabout at either end, was estimated to be £21.8m – compared to earlier estimates of £6m to £16m. Following the May 2005 elections, the planning suffered a one-year delay, when changes to the planning permission laws meant that the application for the permission of the bypass had to be resubmitted.
Subsequent changes to the way in which local road building projects are prioritised and funded have led to a decision to suspend construction of the bypass until 2016 at the earliest, despite Norfolk County Council having spent over £1m on site preparation & legal fees. This led local resident Jason Bunn to establish an online petition on the Prime Minister's website calling for the funding to be made available immediately. Local MP Richard Bacon joined in the campaign, lobbying Transport Secretary Alistair Darling and Roads Minister Stephen Ladyman for a change in the decision; as of 2018 construction has still not begun, but new house building proposals are set to include a single carriageway by-pass road to the East of the village. The village accommodates three schools first known as: Manor Field First School, St. Mary's Middle School, Long Stratton High School. However, in September 2006,'Manor Field First school' became'Manor Field Infant school' and'St. Mary's middle school' became'St.
Mary's church of England junior school'. Shopping facilities are located along the main street which runs through the village, as well as in two small shopping centres. A coop supermarket is located in the centre of the village. In August 2015, a Subway sandwich shop opened inside the supermarket. There are two public houses. Long Stratton has a doctors surgery, as well as a leisure centre, with indoor swimming pool, operated by South Norfolk Council. In terms of public transport, numerous operators run bus services between the village and the city of Norwich. Website with photos of Long Stratton St Mary, a round-tower church Long Stratton Council Information from Genuki Norfolk on Long Stratton
Wymondham
Wymondham is a market town and civil parish in Norfolk, England, 9 1⁄2 miles southwest of Norwich, just off the A11 road from Norwich to London which now bypasses the town. The parish includes large rural areas to the north and south of the town itself, including the hamlets of Downham, Silfield, Spooner Row and Suton. Moot Hill The earthworks of what was a large, medieval ringwork survive to some considerable height; the ringwork, located in an isolated part of the Stanfield estate, is thought by some to have been built by the D'Albinis between 1088 and 1139. The feature measures 150m by 130m, with a large bank and water-filled ditch, it is thought that a gold ring of Katherine Bigot, wife of Roger Fitz-Ortet who held Stanfield Manor in AD 1306, was recovered from this area. Wymondham's most famous inhabitant was Robert Kett, who led a rebellion in 1549 of peasants and small farmers in protest at the enclosure of common land, he took a force of unarmed men and fought for and held the City of Norwich for six weeks until defeated by the King's forces.
He was hanged from Norwich Castle. Kett's Oak, said to be the rallying point for the rebellion, can still be seen today on the B1172 road between Wymondham and Hethersett, part of the former main road to London; the Great Fire of Wymondham broke out on Sunday 11 June 1615. Two areas of the town were affected. One area was in Vicar Street and Middleton Street and the other in the Market Place, including Bridewell Street and Fairland Street. About 300 properties were destroyed in the fire. Important buildings destroyed included: the Market Cross, dating from 1286. However, many buildings such as the Green Dragon pub did survive and many of the houses in Damgate Street date back to 1400, although this is now masked by brickwork; the fire was blamed on three Romani – William Flodder, John Flodder and Ellen Pendleton – and a local person, Margaret Bix. The register of St Andrew's Church in Norwich records that John Flodder and others were executed on 2 December 1615 for the burning of Wymondham. Rebuilding of the destroyed buildings was slower in others.
A new Market Cross, extant 2016, was started and completed in 1617. However, by 1621 there were still about 15 properties not yet rebuilt. Economic conditions in the 1620s could have been a contributory factor to the delay in rebuilding. Kett's Rebellion was evidence of an undercurrent of ferment in 16th-century Wymondham. Comparable discontent showed itself in the 17th century when a number of Wymondham citizens, including Thomas Lincoln, John Beal and others, moved to Hingham in the wave of religious dissent that swept England in the years preceding Cromwell's Commonwealth. In 1785, a prison was built using the ideas of the prison reformer, it was the first prison to be built in England with separate cells for the prisoners and was copied both in the United Kingdom and the United States. The collapse of the woollen industry in the mid-19th century led to great poverty in Wymondham. In 1836 there were 600 hand looms. During Victorian times the town was a backwater and never experienced large-scale development.
The town centre remains much as it must have been in the mid-17th century, when the houses were rebuilt after the Great Fire. These newer houses, those which survived the Great Fire, still surround shoppers and visitors as they pass through Wymondham's narrow mediaeval streets. Wymondham played a part in the Second World War, poorly documented, it was home to one of MI6's Radio Security Service direction finding stations. This was soon found to be unsatisfactory and was converted to the more traditional Adcock type; the station at Wymondham was located at 52.583333°N 1.121667°E / 52.583333. Based on information from one of the wartime operators it transpires that another spaced loop station was installed alongside the first in 1944 after the Normandy invasion; this may have been due to increased interest in transmissions from western Europe where the shorter distance made the spaced loop more reliable. Wymondham was struck by an F1/T2 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day.
The civil parish of Wymondham has an area of 44.31 km2 and in the 2001 census a population of 12,539, in 5,477 households, was recorded, rising to 14,405 at the 2011 Census. This large parish includes one nearby village, Spooner Row. Wymondham is governed by a town council of 15 councillors; the town is split into five wards, each of which returns three members though this is due to change in the May 2019 local elections. Since the last election and subsequent by-elections, 12 councillors are members of the Conservative Party, two are from the Liberal Democrats Julian Halls & Suzanne Nuri and one is from the Labour Party; the current mayor is Tony Holden For the purposes of local government, Wymondham civil parish falls within the district of South Norfolk, returning five district councillors, one for each ward. The majority of the town returns one county councillor to Norfolk County Council, however the south part of the Town has a separate county councillor. Nationally, Wymondham is in the Mid Norfolk c
Liberal Democrats (UK)
The Liberal Democrats are a liberal political party in the United Kingdom. They have 11 Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, 96 members of the House of Lords, one member of the European Parliament, five Members of the Scottish Parliament and one member in the Welsh Assembly and London Assembly. At the height of its influence, the party formed a coalition government with the Conservative Party from 2010 to 2015 with its leader Nick Clegg serving as Deputy Prime Minister, it is led by Sir Vince Cable. In 1981, an electoral alliance was established between the Liberal Party, a group, the direct descendent of the 18th-century Whigs, the Social Democratic Party, a splinter group from the Labour Party. In 1988 this alliance was formalised as the Liberal Democrats. Under the leadership of Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy, the party grew during the 1990s and 2000s, focusing its campaigning on specific seats and becoming the third largest party in the House of Commons. Under its leader Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrats were junior partners in a coalition government headed by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, with Clegg serving as Deputy Prime Minister.
The coalition damaged the Liberal Democrats' electoral prospects: the party was reduced from 57 to 8 seats at the 2015 election. Positioned in the centre ground of British politics, the Liberal Democrats are ideologically liberal. Emphasising stronger protections for civil liberties, the party promotes liberal approaches to issues like LGBT rights, education policy, criminal justice. Different factions take different approaches to economic issues; the party is pro-Europeanist, supporting continued UK membership of the European Union and greater European integration. It calls for electoral reform with a transition from the first-past-the-post voting system to one of proportional representation. Other policies have included further environmental protections and drug liberalisation laws, while it has opposed certain UK military engagements like the Iraq War; the party is a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and Liberal International. The Liberal Democrats are strongest in northern Scotland, southwest London, southwest England, mid-Wales.
The Liberal Democrats were formed on 3 March 1988 by a merger between the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party, which had formed a pact nearly seven years earlier as the SDP–Liberal Alliance. The Liberal Party, founded in 1859, were descended from the Whigs and Peelites, while the SDP were a party created in 1981 by former Labour Party members, MPs and cabinet ministers, but gained defections from the Conservative Party. Having declined to third party status after the rise of the Labour Party from 1918 and during the 1920s, the Liberals were challenged for this position in the 1980s when a group of Labour MPs broke away and established the Social Democratic Party; the SDP and the Liberals realised that there was no space for two political parties of the centre and entered into the SDP–Liberal Alliance so that they would not stand against each other in elections. The Alliance was led by Roy Jenkins; the two parties had their own policies and emphases, but produced a joint manifesto for the 1983 and 1987 general elections.
Following disappointing results in the 1987 election, Steel proposed to merge the two parties. Although opposed by Owen, it was supported by a majority of members of both parties, they formally merged in March 1988, with Steel and Robert Maclennan as joint interim leaders; the new party was named Social and Liberal Democrats with the unofficial short form The Democrats being used from September 1988. The name was subsequently changed to Liberal Democrats in October 1989, shortened to Lib Dems; the new party logo, the Bird of Liberty, was adopted in 1989. The minority of the SDP who rejected the merger remained under Owen's leadership in a rump SDP. Michael Meadowcroft joined the Liberal Democrats in 2007 but some of his former followers continue still as the Liberal Party, most notably in a couple of electoral wards of the cities of Liverpool and Peterborough; the then-serving Liberal MP Paddy Ashdown was elected leader in July 1988. At the 1989 European Elections, the party received only 6% of the vote, putting them in fourth place after the Green Party.
They failed to gain a single Member of the European Parliament at this election. Over the next three years, the party recovered under Ashdown's leadership, they performed better at the 1990 local elections and in by-elections—including at Eastbourne in 1990 which saw the first success by a Liberal Democrat standing for parliament. They had further successes in Ribble Valley and Kincardine & Deeside in 1991; the Lib Dems did not reach the share of national votes in the 1990s that the Alliance had achieved in the 1980s. At their first election in 1992, they won 17.8 % of twenty seats. In the 1994 European Elections, the party gained its first two Members of European Parliament. Following the election of Tony Blair as Labour leader in July 1994 after the death of his predecessor John Smith, Ashdown pursued co-operation between the two parties becaus
East of England
The East of England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes. It was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics from 1999, it includes the ceremonial counties of Bedfordshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Suffolk. Essex has the highest population in the region, its population at the 2011 census was 5,847,000. Bedford, Basildon, Southend-on-Sea, Ipswich, Colchester and Cambridge are the region's most populous towns; the southern part of the region lies in the London commuter belt. The region has the lowest elevation range in the UK. North Cambridgeshire and the Essex Coast have most of the around 5% of the region, below 10 metres above sea level; the Fens are in North Cambridgeshire, notable for the lowest point in the country in the land of the village of Holme 2.75 metres below mean sea level, once Whittlesey Mere. The highest point is at Clipper Down at 817 ft, in the far south-western corner of the region in the Ivinghoe Hills. Basildon and Harlow, with Stevenage and Hemel Hempstead, were main New Towns in the 1950s and 1960s, with much industry located there.
In the late 1960s, the Roskill Commission considered Thurleigh in Bedfordshire, Nuthampstead in Hertfordshire and Foulness in Essex as a possible third airport for London. The East of England succeeded the standard statistical region East Anglia; the East of England civil defence region was identical to today's region. England between the Wash and just south of the town of Colchester has since post-Roman times been and continues to be known as East Anglia, including the county traversing the west of this line, Cambridgeshire; the inclusion of Essex as part of East Anglia is open to debate, notably because it was a Saxon kingdom, separate from the kingdom of the East Angles. Essex, despite meaning East-Saxons formed part of the South East England, as did Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, a mixture of definite and debatable Home Counties; the earliest use of the term is from 1695. Charles Davenant, in An essay upon ways and means of supplying the war, wrote, "The Eleven Home Counties, which are thought in Land Taxes to pay more than their proportion..." cited a list including these four.
The term does not appear to have been used in taxation since the 18th century. East Anglia is one of the driest parts of the United Kingdom with average rainfall ranging from 450 mm to 750 mm; this is because low pressure systems and weather fronts from the Atlantic have lost a lot of their moisture over land by the time they reach Eastern England. However the Fens in Cambridgeshire are prone to flooding. Winter is cool but non-prevailing cold easterly winds can affect the area from the continent, these can bring heavy snowfall if the winds interact with a low pressure system over the Atlantic or France. Northerly winds can be cold but are not as cold as easterly winds. Westerly winds bring milder and wetter weather. Southerly winds bring mild air but chill if coming from further east than Spain. Spring is a transitional season that can be chilly to start with but is warm by late-April/May; the weather at this time is changeable and showery. Summer is warm and continental air from mainland Europe or the Azores High leads to at least a few weeks of hot, balmy weather with prolonged warm to hot weather.
The number of summer storms from the Atlantic, such as the remnants of a tropical storm coincides with the location of the jet stream. The East tends to receive much less of their rain than the other regions. Autumn is mild with some days being unsettled and rainy and others warm. At least part of September and early October in the East have warm and settled weather but only in rare years is there an Indian summer where fine weather marks the entire traditional harvest season; the most deprived districts, according to the Indices of deprivation 2007 in the region are, in descending order, Great Yarmouth, Luton and Ipswich. At county level, after Luton and Peterborough, which have a similar level of deprivation, in descending order there is Southend-on-Sea Thurrock; the least deprived districts, in descending order, are South Cambridgeshire, Mid Bedfordshire, East Hertfordshire, St Albans, Rochford, Huntingdonshire, Mid Suffolk, North Hertfordshire, Three Rivers, South Norfolk, East Cambridgeshire and Suffolk Coastal.
At county level, the least deprived areas in the region, in descending order, are Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire, with all three having a similar level of deprivation Essex. The region has the lowest proportion of jobless households in the UK – 0.5%. In March 2011 the region's unemployment claimant count was 3.0%. Inside the region, the highest rate is Great Yarmouth with 6.2%, followed by Peterborough and Southend-on-Sea on 4.7%. In the 2015 general election, there was an overall swing of 0.25% from the Conservatives to Labour, the Liberal Democrats lost 16% of its vote. All of Hertfordshire and Suffolk is now Conservative; the region's electorate voted 49% Conservative, 22% Labour, 16% UKIP, 8% Liberal Democrat and 4% Green. Like other regions, the division of seats favours th
Richard Bacon (politician)
Richard Michael Bacon is a British Conservative Party politician, Member of Parliament for South Norfolk since 2001. Bacon was educated at The King's School, Worcester and at the London School of Economics and Political Science, gaining a First in politics and economics, he was executive editor of the student newspaper, The Beaver. He worked variously in investment banking, financial journalism and public relations consultancy, before setting up his own business advising blue chip international companies on communications. Bacon joined the Conservative Party in 1978. In 1997, he unsuccessfully contested the South-London constituency of Vauxhall, against the Labour incumbent, Kate Hoey, he finished in third place with 15.2% of the overall vote. Bacon was selected for the safe Conservative seat of South Norfolk on the retirement of its veteran MP and former Cabinet Minister, John MacGregor, he won the seat at the 2001 general election, was returned again at the 2005 general election with an increased majority.
In the 2011 district council elections his constituency lost a single Conservative seat to the Liberal Democrats resulting in a majority of 30 seats. In the 2015 general election, Bacon increased his majority for a third time, to double that of his 2001 winning margin. Bacon is a former member of the Public Accounts Committee as of 2017. Though he rebels against the party line, he has rebelled in votes on military action in the Middle East. In March 2003 he was one of only 15 Conservative MPs to vote against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he stated at the time. If I had, I would not have served in the Territorial Army". Following the Commons debate on Britain's response to the Syrian civil war on 29 August 2013, Bacon voted against his own party on a motion approving the use of military force "if necessary", saying he was "voting against the principle of military action". In the Commons debate on intervention against ISIS in Iraq held on 26 September 2014, Bacon again voted against his own party, becoming one of only six Conservatives to defy the three-line whip imposed on Conservative MPs.
Prior to the vote he said: "After bombing the Middle East for much of the past twenty five years, we should have realised by now that we are making things worse". In May 2009, Bacon was one of 15 MPs to sign a Motion of No Confidence in the House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin, he has voted against anti-terror laws, top-up fees, foundation hospitals, the ban on fox hunting, was one of the few Conservatives to support the Impeach Blair campaign. He is sceptical about aspects of the climate change debate, having opposed plans to build new wind turbines in South Norfolk, stating the scheme was not viable for the area. In February 2007, Bacon was alleged to be the politician with the highest expenditure on taxi and car hire during the previous year, a claim which he disputed and referred to the National Audit Office. Bacon was in favour of Brexit prior to the 2016 referendum. In April 2006, Bacon's questioning of Home Office officials concerning the fate of failed asylum seekers released from prison led to a major embarrassment for the Labour administration in the run-up to the local elections the following month, the dismissal of Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary.
Bacon was not himself in favour of the sacking of Clarke, a fellow Norfolk MP, declaring that he had always liked him, that his questioning had been "business, not pleasure". In July 2006, Bacon was named "Backbencher of the Year" by his fellow MPs for the result of his efforts, in November 2006, he won three more awards: "Parliamentarian of the Year" from the Spectator magazine, "Politician of the Year" from the Political Studies Association and "Outstanding Parliamentarian of the Year" from the ConservativeHome website. Bacon is co-author, along with Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, of Conundrum: Why every government gets things wrong and what we can do about it, an analysis of the failure of high-profile UK public sector projects, including the National Health Service IT programme and the Child Support Agency, Passport Agency, Tax Credit scheme, Rural Payments Agency and Student Loans Company, they argue that a key reason for the repeated failure of such projects is that civil servants – charged with turning the grand vision of ministers into reality – "have been recruited on the basis of their cognitive abilities in terms of playing with ideas, not for their ability to make things happen".
Bacon was married to Victoria Panton in 2006 at St Margaret's Church and has two children. The couple separated in 2015 and a decree nisi was issued in January 2016. Richard Bacon MP official constituency website Richard Bacon MP Conservative Party profile South Norfolk Conservatives Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 2010–present Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005 Voting record at Public Whip Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record Richard Bacon MP at Open Rights Group Appearances on C-SPAN
Forehoe and Henstead Rural District
Forehoe and Henstead Rural Districts were adjacent rural districts in Norfolk, England from 1894 to 1935. They were formed under the Local Government Act 1894 based on rural sanitary districts of the same names, lay south of Norwich. In 1935 the Wymondham parish of Forehoe RD was created a new Wymondham Urban District; the remainder, together with the whole of Henstead RD apart from an island in the River Yare, were merged to form Forehoe and Henstead Rural District. Subsequently, changes to the border with Norwich County Borough were made in 1968. In 1974, the merged district was abolished under the Local Government Act 1972, became part of the South Norfolk district; these parishes operated within Forehoe and Henstead RD unless otherwise indicated
Diss
Diss is an English market town and electoral ward in the East Anglian county of Norfolk, near the border with Suffolk. It had a population of 7,572 in 2011. Diss railway station is on the Great Eastern Main Line from London to Norwich; the town lies in the valley of the River Waveney, round a mere covering 6 acres and up to 18 feet deep, although there is another 51 feet of mud. The town takes its name from dic an Anglo-Saxon word meaning either embankment. Diss has a number of historic buildings, including an early 14th-century parish church, a museum. At the time of Edward the Confessor, Diss was part of the Hartismere hundred of Suffolk, it was recorded as such in the Domesday book, it is recorded as being in the king's possession as demesne of the Crown, there being at that time a church and a glebe of 24 acres. This was considered to be worth £15 per annum, which had doubled by the time of William the Conqueror, it being estimated at £30 with the benefit of the whole hundred and half, belonging to it.
It was found to be a league long, around 3 miles and half this distance broad, paid 4d. in Danegeld. From this it appears that it was still small, but it grew shortly afterwards when it subsumed Watlingsete Manor, a neighbouring area, as large as Diss, fuller of inhabitants, according to the geld or tax that it paid; this was afterwards called Walcote, includes part of Heywode, as appears from its joining to Burston, into which town this manor extended. Diss was granted by King Henry I to Richard de Lucy, prior to 1135; the Testa de Neville states that it was not known whether Diss was rendered unto Richard de Lucy as an inheritance or for his service, but states that, without doubt it was for the latter. Richard de Lucy become Chief Justiciar to King Stephen and Henry II. In 1152 Richard de Lucy received the right to hold a market in Diss, prior to 1161 he gave a third of a hundred at Diss together with the market in frank marriage with his daughter Dionisia to Sir Robert de Mountenay. After Richard de Lucy’s death in 1179, the inheritance of the other two parts of the hundred of Diss passed to his daughter Maud, who married Walter FitzRobert.
The whole estate fell into the hands of the Lordship of the FitzWalters and in 1299 the Lord FitzWalter obtained a charter of confirmation for a fair every year at his manor of Diss, to be held around the feast of Saint Simon and Jude, several days after. A grant made in 1298 to William Partekyn of Prilleston granted, for homage and half a mark of silver, two homesteads in Diss, with liberty of washing his wool and cloths in Diss Meer; this came on the express condition. It seems as if the church of Diss was built by the same Lord, as his arms were cut into the stone of the south porch of the church several times. Soon after the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, Edward Plantagenet, Duke of York and Earl of Rutland, came to hold Diss manor and market, together with Hemenhale, it was part of a much larger estate that included Hemenhale and Diss manors, with the hundred of Diss in Norfolk, the manors of Shimpling and Thorne in Suffolk, of Wodeham-Walter, Leiden, Dunmow Parva, Burnham and Shering in Essex.
Shortly afterwards, the estate was acquired by the Ratcliffe family, who inherited the title of Baron FitzWalter. The Ratcliffe family owned the land until at least 1732, styling themselves Viscounts FitzWalter. Opposite the 14th-century parish church of St. Mary the Virgin stands a 16th-century building known as the Dolphin House; this was one of the most important buildings in the town. Its impressive dressed-oak beams denote it as an important building a wool merchant's house. A pub, the Dolphin, from the 1800s to the 1960s, the building now houses a number of small businesses. Adjacent to Dolphin House is the town's market place, the geographical and social centre of the town; the market is held every Friday: a variety of local traders sell fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and cheeses. The market was first granted a charter by Richard the Lionheart; the town's post office and main shopping street are located by the marketplace. Early in 1871, substantial alterations were made to a house in Mount Street, about 100 yards north of the parish church.
The workmen were removing the brick flooring of one of the ground floor rooms and excavating the soil beneath, to insert the joists of a boarded floor, when they discovered a hoard of coins. Beneath the bricks, they came upon the original hard clay floor, in the centre of the room, at about 18 inches from the surface, the remains of an earthen vessel were found, containing over 300 coins. Except for two fine gold nobles, all of the coins were silver. Four miles east of Diss is the 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum at the former RAF Thorpe Abbotts airfield. In March 2006, Diss became the third town in the UK to join Cittaslow, an international organisation promoting the concept of'Slow Towns', it has since left this initiative. A railway journey from London to Diss is the subject of a poem by the late Sir John Betjeman: "A Mind's Journey to Diss", he made a short documentary film in 1964 entitled Something about Diss. Diss has at least 9 churches including Church of England (St. Mary the Vi
South Norfolk
