Great Barton

The village's name derives from Old English words Bere meaning barley and tūn meaning enclosure/demesne farm or outlying grange.[5]

The village is first recorded as Bertune in 942 in the will of Bishop Theodred granting lands to his kinsman Osgot, Eadulf's son.[6]

The Domesday Book of 1086 records the village as being in the Theivardestreu Hundred, now known as Thedwastre, and the population was 103 households made up of 22 villagers, 70 freemen, 7 smallholders, and 4 slaves along with 4 cobs, 18 cattle, 44 pigs, 402 sheep, and 2 beehives. The lands were held by Bury Abbey before and after the Norman conquest of England[7]

Around 1783 a post mill was built North East of the main village near Mill Road, this was demolished circa 1920.[8]

In 1816 Sir Henry Bunbury, 7th Baronet, the major land owner in the area, founded one of the earliest allotment schemes in the country. He started granting land to his labouring tenants at the end of 1816 and early 1817 shortly after the food and anti-machinery riots, commonly known as the 'Bread or Blood' riots.[9] The allotments were situated in the land bounded by Vicarage Farm Lane, Mill Road, and Livermere Road.[10] He wrote in his memoirs of the allotments:[11]

My earliest trials, with mere gardens, soon showed me that, while the condition of the cottagers' families was in some degree improved, the men to whom these patches of ground were allotted became more domestic and moral in their habits.

Church of the Holy Innocents

The medieval grade I listed parish church is located to the south of the main village and is one of only five churches in the country to be dedicated to the Holy Innocents.[12]

The tower dates from the later half of 15th century. Bequests for its construction were left in wills of Thomas Gatle of Great Livermere (10 marks) and John Stacey of Thurston (5 marks).[13] Six bells from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries hang in the tower with the largest weighing 8.75 cwt.[14]

The chancel is the earliest part of the building dating from the late 13th century with hexagonal buttresses at the East end. Four windows with plate tracery featuring a quatrefoil above two trefoil-cusped lancets feature on the North & South sides, two on each all with 19th Century stained glass. The East window mixes plate with bar tracery and has three lancets with the central one cusped and ogee-pointed and three encircled quatrefoils at the top.[15]

Holy Innocents Church, Gt Barton

Media related to Great Barton at Wikimedia Commons