# Bramerton

Bramerton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk.
Bramerton is located 5.8 miles (9.3 km) north-west of Loddon and 4.3 miles (6.9 km) south-east of Norwich.

## History

Bramerton's name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and derives from the Old English for a farmstead or village close to a bramble thicket.
In the Domesday Book, Bramerton is recorded as a settlement of 25 households in the hundred of Henstead. In 1086, the village was part of the estates of King William I, Odo of Bayeux, Roger Bigod of Norfolk and Godric the Steward.
Bramerton Hall, located on the corner of The Street and Surlingham Lane, was built in the 1830s and is also Grade II listed.
There are numerous Grade II listed cottages in Bramerton. These include Orchard House (Seventeenth Century), The Grange (Seventeenth Century), Grove Farm Cottages (Seventeenth Century) and the White House (Eighteenth Century).
In the 1920s, a Lychgate for St. Peter's Church was created by John Shingles using oak wood from local trees.

## Geography

According to the 2021 census, Bramerton has a population of 323 people which shows a slight increase from the 301 people recorded in the 2011 census.
The River Yare runs through the north of the parish.

## St. Peter's Church

Bramerton's parish church is dedicated to Saint Peter and dates at its earliest from around the year 1300. The church was significantly remodelled and restored in the 1860s when a memorial window depicting a Mary Adelaide Blake which was installed by Ward and Hughes.

## Amenities

Bramerton's post office closed in 1968 alongside the village shop in 1977 and the school in 1978. However, "The Water's Edge" public house is still in operation and was previously known as "Woods End".
At the north end of the village is a Dawn Christadelphian Hall, first opened in 1952 and extended in the 1960s and then again in the 1980s. A secondary hall for youth activities was added in the 2000s.
Bramerton Health Care Clinic offers homoeopathy, herbal supplements and dietary advice.

## Bramerton Pits

The rock strata reaching the surface at Bramerton Pits, adjacent to the Common at Woods End, have resulted in the name of the village being given to an early Pleistocene glacial stage in the geological pre-history of the British Isles. The Bramertonian Stage is distinguished by the presence of shelly, sandy deposits indicative of a temperate climate. Bramerton Pits has been noted as a Site of Special Scientific Interest on account of the geology and has been excavated on several occasions.

## Woods End

There has been an inn on the site since before 1700. In 1828 the area and the nearby river were painted by Joseph Stannard, prominent in the Norwich School; entitled Boats on the Yare near Bramerton, Norfolk, his painting is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. In Victorian times the inn possessed tea rooms and gardens popular with river-borne day-trippers from Norwich.
The Woods End is still a popular spot for the mooring of pleasure craft and is also one of the few places on the Norfolk Broads where water skiing is allowed. Outside the pub (now renamed the Water's Edge) is a statue of Billy Bluelight (William Cullum), who in the 1920s–30s used to challenge boat trippers to a race along the riverbank. He is famed for his claim... "My name is Billy Bluelight, my age is 45, I hope to get to Carrow Bridge before the boat arrive." He is said to have remained '45' for many years.

## Sports and recreation

Bramerton and District Bowls club was founded in 1965, moving to its current location near the village hall in 1972. The village hall itself was erected by voluntary labour in 1988 after having been rescued from its previous existence as a Surlingham bungalow. The village hall is now the venue for a range of activities including a play group called Sunbeams, Brownies and yoga.
Adjacent to the Bowls club is a children's playground with swings, climbing frame and slide. At Grange Farm Barns in the centre of the village is a Caravan Club certified location.

## Transport

Bramerton is served by bus route 85 operated by Konectbus, providing nine services a day into Norwich via Kirby Bedon and to the neighbouring villages of Surlingham and Rockland St Mary.
National Cycle Route 1 passes through Bramerton on its route from Norwich via Trowse and Whitlingham and out to Loddon via Surlingham.
The Wherryman's Way, a long distance footpath, passes close by at Woods End.

## Governance

Bramerton is part of the electoral ward of Rockland for local elections and is part of the district of South Norfolk.
The village's national constituency is South Norfolk which has been represented by the Labour's Ben Goldsborough MP since 2024.

## War memorial

Bramerton's War Memorial is a stone Celtic cross located in St Peter's Churchyard. It bears the following names for the First World War:
| Rank | Name | Unit | Date of Death | Other Commemoration / Burial |
| Lt. Col. | John D. M. Beckett | 10th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment | 9 February 1918 | Mikra British Cemetery |
| LCpl. | Harry E. Doggett | 8th Battalion, Border Regiment | 14 July 1916 | Thiepval Memorial |
| LCpl. | H. S. Hayes | 9th Battalion, Norfolk Regiment | 21 September 1916 | Grove Town Cemetery, Méaulte |
| LCpl. | Frederic W. Perfitt | 11th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters | 5 October 1918 | Prospect Hill Cemetery, Gouy-Saint-André |
| LS | John H. Osborne | HMS Hogue | 22 September 1914 | Chatham Naval Memorial |
| Pte. | John P. Debbage | 1st Battalion, Essex Regiment | 13 August 1915 | Helles Memorial |
| Pte. | Percy W. Norman | 10th Battalion, Essex Rgt. | 1 July 1916 | British Cemetery, La Neuville-lès-Bray |
| Pte. | Samuel J. Daynes | 1/4th Battalion, Norfolk Regiment | 19 April 1917 | Jerusalem Memorial |
| Pte. | Arthur S. Frost | 8th Battalion, Norfolk Rgt. | 28 July 1916 | St. Peter's Churchyard, Bramerton |
| Pte. | W. A. Daynes | Norfolk Rgt. | 4 March 1919 | St. Andrew's Churchyard, Trowse |