ECCLES, a parish in the hundred of HAPPING,
county of NORFOLK, 9 miles (E. by S.) from North
Walsham, containing, with Hemstead, 212 inhabitants.
The living is a discharged rectory, consolidated with that
of Hemstead, in the archdeaconry of Norfolk, and diocese
of Norwich, rated in the king's books at £ 8. E. Lombe,
Esq. was patron in 1815. The church, dedicated to St.
Mary, was swallowed up by the sea in 1605. The coast
is defended by a ridge of sand hills, thrown up by the
wind and surge, which seems to oppose a sufficient barrier
to any future encroachment of the sea, though at the
period when the church disappeared, the village was reduced
from eighty to fourteen houses, and the land in
the parish from one thousand three hundred to three
hundred acres, by a terrible inundation, and in the time
of Charles I. only one hundred acres remained after a
similar calamity.