ELMHAM (NORTH), a parish in the hundred of
LAUNDITCH, county of NORFOLK, 5 miles (N.) from East
Dereham, containing 1046 inhabitants. The living is a
discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Norfolk, and
diocese of Norwich, rated in the king's books at £ 13.15.,
and in the patronage of R. Mills, Esq. The church, dedicated
to St. Mary, has at the west end a quadrangular
tower with a slender spire one hundred and nineteen
feet high. The kingdom of the East Angles, which,
from its first conversion by Felix had been under one
bishop, was, about 673, divided into two dioceses, when
one of the episcopal seats was fixed at Dunwich, and
the other in this ancient town, which had a succession
of ten bishops, till the martyrdom of Humbert by the
Danes, in 870. The two sees were again united
about 950, and the episcopal chair transferred to Thetford
in 1075, and soon afterwards to Norwich. The
site of the cathedral is still discernible, and near it
are some old wells. Herbert, first bishop of Norwich,
rebuilt the parish church, but the present seems to be
of later date: from the altar ran a subterranean passage
to the palace, situated on a neighbouring hill, which
Bishop Spencer, in the turbulent reign of Richard II.,
converted into a castle, and surrounded with a double
intrenchment, the inner moat enclosing the keep; its
remains are now almost obscured by thorns and briars.
Not far from the village, numerous Roman urns and
coins were discovered in 1710; and in a field called
Broomclose, urns of various sizes and colours, containing
bones, ashes, glass, divers brass instruments, and
a silver seal-ring with an eagle holding a thunderbolt
have been found.