page_title: Thetford
section_title: Tudor history to present
hierarchical_section_title: Thetford / History / Tudor history to present
caption_attribution_description: English: Over the course of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, England and Wales changed beyond recognition. Over 800 religious houses were closed, their lands given to private owners and many monks and friars who resisted were executed. At a time where one in five men had taken religious orders, this was a major upheaval of everyday life for the whole population. Even Thetford Priory in Norfolk, where Henry VIII’s own illegitimate son Henry FitzRoy had been buried four years previously, could not escape the dissolution becoming one of the last religious houses to close in February 1540. This deed, signed by the monks of the house, shows the priory’s seal depicting the Virgin Mary to whom the priory was dedicated.
context_page_description: Thetford is a market town and civil parish in the Breckland district of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road between Norwich and London, just east of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, covering an area of 29.55 km², has a population of 24,340.
  There has been a settlement at Thetford since the Iron Age, and parts of the town predate the Norman Conquest; Thetford Castle was established shortly thereafter. Roger Bigod founded the Cluniac Priory of St Mary in 1104, which became the largest and most important religious institution in Thetford. The town was badly hit by the dissolution of the monasteries, including the castle's destruction, but was rebuilt in 1574 when Elizabeth I established a town charter. After World War II, Thetford became an "overspill town", taking people from London, as a result of which its population increased substantially. Thetford was the headquarters of Tulip International, large-scale manufacturers of bacon, beef and pork until its closure in 2010.
  Thetford railway station is served by the Breckland line and is one of the best surviving pieces of 19th century railway architecture in East Anglia.
context_section_description: Henry VIII sent Anne Boleyn's father, Thomas, as part of a Commission to assess Thetford in 1527. The Commission concluded that the town had fallen into "great ruin and decay" and that the burgesses of the town had squandered rents and dues which belonged to the King. Thetford was struck hard by the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s and 1540s. A formal complaint was raised by the Mayors and burgesses to Thomas Cromwell in 1539, arguing that many of the town's inhabitants would fall into extreme poverty because their livelihoods depended on pilgrims visiting Thetford. Thetford Priory was closed down in 1540 and fell into the possession of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. In 1574, Elizabeth I granted a Charter of Incorporation to the town, setting up a governing body of a Mayor, ten burgesses and twenty commoners to meet in the Guildhall and redevelop the town main streets, houses and shops. Elizabeth arrived in Thetford on 27 August 1578 to survey developments, holding a Privy Council meeting at Sir Edward Clere's Place House, now Nunnery Place. A lot of material from the decaying priory and religious buildings in the town were used to save building costs in the building of King's House and other buildings in Thetford.
  In 1819 there was a local desire to develop Thetford into a spa town modelled on Bath, Cheltenham and Harrogate. A pump room was built over the spring at Nuns Bridges and the Thetford Mineral Spring Company was established. The mayor financed a new gravel path along the bank of the Little Ouse, which was named Spring Walk. The plan did not succeed; by 1838 the pump room was closed.  In 1835 the old Corporation of Thetford was abolished, and a new one set up a Mayor, four aldermen and twelve councillors. The town was represented by two MPs until 1868 when it lost a seat to Scotland.
  Dr Allan Glaisyer Minns, born in Inagua, the Bahamas, Mayor of Thetford in 1904, was the first black man to become a mayor in Britain. In 1912, more than 30,000 troops participated in military manoeuvres on the heath land outside the town. Over 700 men from the town fought in World War I; a memorial was erected in 1921 with the names of over a 100 men who died during the war. At the end of World War II, Thetford still only had a population of around 5000 people. In the 1950s, the borough council drew up a plan with the London County Council to relocate Londoners and several businesses to Thetford and double the population. By the late 1980s the population of Thetford had reached around 21,000 people. This meant that Thetford grew faster than any other town in Norfolk.
caption: Deed of Surrender of Thetford Priory, 1540
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