Located in North Norfolk, not far from the coastal towns of Cromer and Sheringham, Bessingham is a small village with about thirty houses. It has no pub or shop, but several farmhouses and cottages, a mediaeval church and a Victorian manor house, and almost 500 acres of mostly arable farmland. It has always been a farming community, but its landscape and society have changed continually over the centuries. After seven years of research, Jonathan Spurrell published Bessingham: The Story of a Norfolk Estate, 1766-1970 in September 2016. It is the first book ever written about Bessingham, exploring the lives of the men, women and children who lived and worked on the Bessingham estate, to which most of the land in the village belonged. To coincide with the launch of the book, the Bessingham History Project has been set up to continue the work of researching and understanding the village's rich heritage. Anyone with photographs, manuscripts or stories relating to Bessingham and the people who live or lived there is invited to get in touch so that an even fuller picture can be put together of the village over the centuries.
