Holt, Norfolk

The most likely derivation of the name Holt is from an Anglo-Saxon word for woodland,[3] and Holt is located on wooded high ground of the Cromer-Holt ridge at the crossing point of two ancient by-ways and as such was a natural point for a settlement to grow. The town has a mention in the great survey of 1086 known as the Domesday Book. In the survey it is described as a market town and a port with the nearby port of Cley next the Sea being described as Holt's port. It also had five watermills and twelve plough teams and as such was seen as a busy thriving viable settlement. The first Lord of the Manor was Walter Giffard;[3] it passed to Hugh, Earl of Chester, who then left it to the De Vaux family. By this time Holt had a well-established market and two annual fairs which were held on 25 April and 25 November. Over the years Holt grew as a local place of trade and commerce. The weekly market which had taken place since before the 1080s was stopped in the 1960s.[3]

On 1 May 1708, Holt was devastated by a fire which destroyed most of the medieval town in three hours. The fire started at Shirehall Plain and quickly spread through the timber houses of the town. The church was also badly damaged with its thatched chancel destroyed, the lead melted from the windows and the flames spreading up the steeple.[3] Contemporary reports stated that the fire spread so swiftly that the butchers did not have time to rescue their meat from their stalls on the market. The damage to the town was estimated to be in the region of £11,000.[3] The town subsequently received many donations from all over the country to aid reconstruction.

With most of the medieval buildings destroyed, the rebuilding made Holt notable for its abundance of Georgian buildings, that being the style of the day. However, the town repaired and retains its Norman parish church, which is dedicated to St Andrew.

A mid-air collision over the town occurred on the night of 19 August 1968, involving a Victor Tanker from RAF Marham and a Canberra bomber from RAF Bruggen in West Germany. This followed an electrical storm that had disabled radar systems.[4] A memorial stone hangs inside Saint Andrew's Church.

Gresham's School, a public school founded in 1555 by Sir John Gresham, originally for boys but co-educational since 1971, is located on the north side of the town.[9]

The school's former pupils include Benjamin Britten, W. H. Auden, Lord Reith, Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, President Erskine Childers, Sir Christopher Cockerell, Donald Maclean, Sir Lennox Berkeley, Sir Stephen Spender, Richard Hand, Tom Wintringham, Sir James Dyson, Ralph Firman, Sir Peter Brook, Paddy O'Connell, Sebastian Shaw, Olivia Colman, Sienna Guillory, John Tusa, Tom Youngs and Michael Cummings.

Holt Community Primary School is a state primary school for children aged 4–11. The Infant School was built in 1910 with the Junior School being built by 1928. The Infant School and Junior School was amalgamated in 1965 to form Holt County Primary School. The school has been extended and developed over the years. It changed its name in 1999 to Holt Community Primary School.

There is no state secondary school in the town, so many children travel to Sheringham High School between the ages of 11 and 16.

The hall was built in the 1840s and extended in the 1860s. The hall is located in an 86-acre (35 ha) estate made up of ancient woodlands, lawns, lakes and gardens.

It was owned by Henry Burcham-Rogers, who inherited it from his father John Rogers in 1906. Henry Burcham-Rogers kept the hall until his death in 1945.

Holt Hall is currently a field studies centre run by Norfolk County Council.

1–3 Shirehall Plain – The building is thought to be the oldest house in Holt (the cellar dates back to the 15th century), a survivor of the great fire of Holt in 1708 and a further fire in the building in 1906. The premises traded as a hardware shop or ironmonger's for over 100 years under the ownership of the Byford family. Byfords is now run as a café, delicatessen and B&B

Blind Sam is the name given locally to the Queen Victoria Jubilee Lantern located in Obelisk Plain. From the year of Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887 until 1921 it stood in the Market Place, where it had two functions, to provide light to the Market Place and to provide drinking water from two fountains at the bottom. The light was powered by the town's gas supply, which at the time was sporadic and unreliable, hence the nickname "Blind Sam". It was moved to Obelisk Plain in 1921 to make way for the war memorial. Made by ironmongers in Glasgow, it was restored in the 1990s.

The pineapple-topped obelisk at Holt is one of a pair gateposts from Melton Constable Park, the other having been given to the town of Dereham in 1757. Each gatepost had the distances to various places from Holt and Dereham respectively carved into the stone. At the start of the Second World War, to avoid assisting the enemy in the event of invasion, the townspeople of Dereham dumped their obelisk down a deep well, where it remains to this day. The people of Holt whitewashed their obelisk at the start of the Second World War and it remains in good condition and a cause of great interest.

The town's water was pumped from the common land at Spout Hills to the water tower in Shirehall Plain. The tower was made from bricks, built in 1885 by Erpingham Rural Sanitary Authority and was 56 ft (17 m) high. It held 15,000 gallons of water and the water level inside the tank could be read from the ground. The tower was in use until 1955 and was demolished in 1957.

A brick-built windmill was erected in the late 18th century: when put up for sale in the summer of 1792 it was described as "newly built". It was used by many different owners until the early 1920s. The sails were removed in 1922 and the rest of the machinery was removed in the 1930s. The brick tower was then used for storage until deemed unsafe. The brick tower was demolished in the 1970s. There are now homes on the site, known as Mill Court.

Holt Country Park is a short walk from the town. Its history includes a horseracing course, heath, farmland, forestry and woodland garden. It is now woodland dominated with Scots pine and native broadleaves. Its rich ground flora supports wildlife including deer. The park has achieved a Green Flag Award every year since 2005.

Holt Lowes

The Lowes is an area of heathland of around 120 acres (0.49 km²) to the south of Holt set aside by the Inclosure Act of 1807. The poor of Holt had grazing rights for an animal and also had the right to take wood and gorse from the land for their own use. It is likely that the land was never used by the poor of Holt as the land was not wholly suitable. The Lowes was used for military training during the First World War. It is open to the public along with Holt Country Park. The Lowes has long been recognised as an important area for wildlife, with records going back to the 18th century. It was declared an SSSI in 1954 and for a while managed as a nature reserve by the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, which continues to act as managing agents for the trustees. As on all lowland heaths, there is a constant need for management to prevent the encroachment of trees. Recent work has concentrated on clearing a large part of the mixed valley mire, an area of sphagnum bog that supports plants like sundews and several species of dragonfly, including one, the keeled skimmer, found nowhere else in East Anglia.[10]

These consist of 14 acres (57,000 m²) of green space, which provided the town of Holt with all of its water needs, enabling it to grow and flourish. An old reservoir still exists but the pumping station was dismantled in the 1950s.

Bakers & Larners

Bakers & Larners is a department store located on Market Place. It has been continuously owned by the Baker family since the eighteenth century.[11][12][13][14]

The Holt Summer Festival started in 2009 is an arts festival. The event runs for a week and included music, theatre, literature, cinema and art.

On Sunday 25 June 2006, Holt was "invaded" by Daleks. The event was a celebration of BBC Television's classic science fiction series Doctor Who. The Doctor Who Midsummer Invasion attracted many fans of the ever-popular show to the town as well as some of its previous stars. Organised by Planet Skaro, a local sci-fi store that has subsequently closed, the highlight of the day was a Dalek parade through the town centre.

Due to the success of the first Invasion, another science fiction themed event took place in Holt on 30 June 2007.