CREAKE (NORTH), a parish in the hundred of
BROTHERCROSS, county of NORFOLK, 3 miles (S.E. by S.)
from Burnham-Westgate, containing 618 inhabitants.
The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry of Norfolk,
and diocese of Norwich, rated in the king's books at
£33. 6. 8., and in the patronage of Earl Spencer and
the Bishop of Norwich alternately. The church is dedicated
to St. Mary, besides which there was formerly
one dedicated to St. Michael, also parochial. At Lingerscroft,
between Creake and Burnham, Sir Robert de
Hereford, in 1206, founded a church, and subsequently
a chapel and hospital, dedicated in 1221 to St. Bartholomew,
in which he placed a master, four chaplains,
and thirteen poor lay brethren: this foundation soon
afterwards acquired the distinction of a priory, and in
the 15th of Henry III. was elevated into an abbey: that
monarch also confirmed the grant of a fair previously
made, changing the period to the eve and festival of St.
Thomas the Martyr; in the 14th of Edward I. the abbot
claimed the right of holding four fairs annually at
Crealce. In consequence of the death of the abbot, and
there being no convent to elect another, the abbey was
deemed dissolved, .and its possessions were granted, in
the 22nd of Henry VII., to the Countess of Richmond,
by whom they were given to Christ's College, Cambridge.
In 1815 a school-house was erected here, upon
land given for the purpose by a charitable individual.
There are four cottages appropriated for the benefit of
the poor.