A message from the Council chairman, Joe Wiley 

This web-site has been created as a part our obligations under the Freedom  of Information Act. This requires us, amongst other things, to keep parishioners fully informed of their parish council's activities. We aim to be totally transparent in all our activities and functions, so please let us know if you feel there are any omissions, or of any improvements we can make.

To contact the council you should refer to the 'Contact us' option in the menu on the left of this page. Here you will find our e-mail address as well as each councillor's address and telephone number

Organisations and/or clubs, involved with parish-based activities, are invited to make full use of this site, to let parishioners know about their activities.  If you would like to have a diary-date listed on this site please e-mail us at:- 

mail@greatandlittleplumsteadparishcouncil.co.uk

I hope you will find the pages of this website both interesting and informative. After all, this is really the Community's website, which is simply administered by the parish council. 

JOE WILEY - Council Chairman & Little Plumstead ward member

About the Parish of Great and Little Plumstead

The parish is on the eastern suburban fringe of greater Norwich; it stretches from the city's ancient Mousehold Heath, eastward to the Broads countryside. Its southern border skirts the A47, which links Norwich to Gt. Yarmouth. The northern border runs along a spine-road, linking the villages of Great Plumstead (330+ pop.), Little Plumstead (900+) and Thorpe End Garden Village (1,000+). 

LITTLE PLUMSTEAD

has a round-towered Church, St. Gervase and St. Protase, which is the parish's oldest building. It adjoins a typical 18th century, Norfolk estate with its hall, lake and woodland, all of which still remains intact. The former grounds of the hall, until recent times the site of a hospital, are being re-generated by the building of a large housing estate, school and business park.

The village comprises mainly 20th century housing, but agriculture remains the predominant industry; however, the rural landscape is changing, with arable crops displacing pastureland. Prior to the creation of the railways, locally-fattened cattle were assembled here, into "droves", then taken for slaughter at London's Smithfield market. This practice, along with local brick-making, has long disappeared with the only remaining reminders being the appropriately-named, "Brick Kilns" public house and "Sandhole Lane". Little Plumstead boasts a centuries-old octagon barn, one of only four remaining in the country. It is scheduled for extensive refurbishment and will become the central feature, within a commercial-use regeneration scheme now being undertaken, named 'The Octagon'. 

GREAT PLUMSTEAD

is also an agricultural village, where the landscape is changing.  Its name might mean 'the place of the big plums', but this is only one of a number of theories concerning the origins of the name. The arable farms have expanded, to displace the market gardens, which supplied Norwich with fruit, vegetables and flowers. Only one now remains, a third-generation, local family concern in Smee Lane, and still meets the demand for quality flowers and plants.

Great Plumstead, like its neighbouring village, Little Plumstead, has a medieval church; St. Mary the Virgin, the tower of which was rebuilt, in brick, after a disastrous fire, in 1891. In Low Road is the Hall, an 18th century Red House with a vernacular cottage nearby.

THORPE END GARDEN VILLAGE

is, by contrast, a 20th century creation. It is Norfolk's unique version of Ebenezer Howard's concept; as exemplified at Hampstead and Letchworth. In the 1930's estate agent brothers, Percy and Leonard Howes, conceived a  residential community, with individuals building their own dwellings, on individually-bought plots. All conformed to rural designs, many with thatched-roofs. Some front The Green, situated on either side of the Plumstead Road; running west from Great Plumstead, to the woodland outskirts of greater Norwich. The southern part of the village was developed with avenues of chestnut trees,having two carriage-ways, separated by a traditional hedgerow.

The northern part of Thorpe End Garden Village, completed through the 1970s and 80s, retains a landscape of trees, shrubs and integrated open spaces. The Village's infrastructure has been completed with a shopping parade, village hall and church, St. David's. Built in 1992 it has some beautiful, modern, stained-glass windows. In 1978 the village won the "Best Kept Village in Norfolk" award. It can be truly said that Thorpe End Garden Village has a special look, and feel, about it.