Official Guide to North Walsham 2023-2024

Historical North Walsham 143
to Eastern Shore, Virginia. This line of the family
is well documented to the present. Charles
Scarburgh held many positions of honour
under the Crown. A master of Caius College,
Cambridge, in 1639 and later a fellow in 1646.
He was Doctor of Physics at Merton College,
Oxford, and Court Physician to Charles II, James
II and William III. He was an MP and knighted in
1669. Samuel Pepys mentions him many times
in his diaries. He was also one of the greatest
mathematicians of his time and the author of
several mathematical treatises. He died on
February 26th 1694 and is buried in Cranford,
Middlesex.
After several changes of ownership the building
became part of the North Walsham High School
for Girls early in the 20th Century. Alumni
include Rt. Hon Gillian Shephard, cabinet
minister in the 1990s including being Secretary
of State for Education and Employment. In 1984
the Girls High School joined with the Paston
School to become Paston Sixth Form College.
3. The Town Stocks, Market Street.
The evidence for the stocks is in an ink and
watercolour drawing by E. Pocock (1846-1905).
He was most prolific just before the turn of the
19th century but the scene would have been of
a period long before that, as his specialty was for
copying older paintings. There are two similar
views, one in oils on which this sketch may have
been modelled. The site is now built over by the
single storey extension to the former Feathers
Public House.
3a. North Walsham - Dilham Canal
On 14 September 1811 a meeting was held
at the Kings Arms Hotel, North Walsham
under the Chairmanship of John Millington of
Hammersmith, where the decision was made
to construct a canal from Wayford Bridge to
Antingham Ponds in the county of Norfolk.
Parliament was petitioned and the Bill received
Royal Assent on 5 May the following year. Due
to problems with local landowners it was not
until 1824 that it went ahead and under the
direction of Mr Millington work started on 5
April 1825. 60 navvies known as ‘Bedfordshire
Bankers’ completed the work, including the
locks, in the remarkably short time of 18
months, the first wherries sailing up the canal
in the summer of 1826. Unfortunately the
commercial success of the canal was short lived
due to the advent of the railways later in the
century and the canal fell into disuse finally in
1935. The North Walsham and Dilham Canal
Trust was formed in 2008 and with the help
of many willing volunteers is restoring the
canal for leisure use by canoeists, fishermen,
bird watchers etc., and for the pleasure of the
residents of North Walsham, visitors and people
in the surrounding parishes. This plaque is
situated on the wall of the Kings Arms Hotel.
4. Admiral Nelson, Paston College,
Grammar School Road.
The great popular hero and first commoner
to be afforded a state funeral, ‘Horace’ Nelson
was born at Burnham Thorpe in 1758. He was
proud of his Norfolk origins, ‘I am a Norfolk man
and glory in being so’ he wrote. He recruited