Place:Helhoughton, Norfolk, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Helhoughton is a village and civil parish in the northwest part of Norfolk, England. It is 4.2 miles (6.8 km) west-southwest of the town of Fakenham, 29.3 miles (47.2 km) west-northwest of Norwich and 112 miles (180 km) north-northeast of London. The nearest railway station is at Sheringham for the Bittern Line which runs between Sheringham, Cromer and Norwich. The parish had, in the 2001 UK census, a population of 197, rising to 346 at the 2011 UK census. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the District of North Norfolk.

The parish is bordered to the north by the parish of Tattersett and to the south by the parish of Raynham. To the west is the parish of West Rudham and to the east is the parish of Dunton where the parish boundary line is partly the course of the River Wensum. The large landscape park surrounding Raynham Hall is on the east side of the riverbank. The tributary of the Wensum called the River Tat also passes through the northern rim of the parish. The small hamlet of Painston, which can be found on Faden’s map of 1797, was to the west of the village and has now virtually disappeared with only Painswhin Farm, which dates to the 18th century, on the site of the lost settlement.

The name Helhoughton is thought to derive from a mixture of Old English and Old Scandinavian and has the meaning farmstead of a man named Helgi.

Research Tips

• GENUKI provides a list of references for Helhoughton. Some entries lead to free online transcriptions of registers and censuses.
• GENUKI also supplies a map illustrating the individual parishes of Gallow Hundred. Parishes labelled with letters should be identifiable from the Ordnance Survey Map of 1900.
• GENUKI also advises that the following lists for Norfolk are to be found in FamilySearch:

• England, Norfolk, Parish Registers (County Record Office), 1510-1997
• England, Norfolk Archdeacon's Transcripts, 1600-1812
• England, Norfolk Bishop's Transcripts, 1685-1941
• England, Norfolk Marriage Bonds, 1557-1915
• England, Norfolk Non-conformist Records, 1613-1901

• Ancestry.co.uk has the following lists as of 2018 (UK or worldwide Ancestry membership or library access required). With the exception of the index to wills these files are browsible images of the original documents. The files are separated by type and broken down into time periods (i.e., "Baptism, Marriages, and Burials, 1535-1812" is more than one file). The general explanatory notes are worth reading for those unfamiliar with English parish records.

• Index to wills proved in the Consistory Court of Norwich : and now preserved in the District Probate Registry at Norwich
• Norfolk, England, Bishop's Transcripts, 1579-1935
• Norfolk, England, Church of England Baptism, Marriages, and Burials, 1535-1812
• Norfolk, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1915
• Norfolk, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1990
• Norfolk, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1940

• FindMyPast is another pay site with large collection of parish records. As of October 2018 they had 20 types of Norfolk records available to browse including Land Tax Records and Electoral Registers.