Current News
Groups work on display in the castle Oct 09
Shortly members of the public will be able to see contracted pieces of the groups work on display in the castle. The selected topics will rotate from time to time to maintain an interest.
Members of the group to give talks to other local groups Oct 09
It seems the history group has found another role to play other than researching. Over the past 12 months we have not only been hosts to village tours but are now being asked to talk about our research and discoveries to other groups.
More successful tours around the village Sept 09
Tue 21st, & Thurs 23rd July saw two more walks around the village for local residents to get a better understanding of the villages past history. Hosted by the Castle Rising History group various members provided information at different stages of the walk. We would to take this opportunity to thank the local residents who took part for their kind comments and letters.
Groups Recent Discovery
Sir John Trevor (1637-1717) MP for Castle Rising
Recently, because of news of the decision of parliament to ask the Speaker of the House, Michael Martin to step down, attention has been drawn by the media to the previous occasion when a similar momentous and historic decision had been taken. It was more than 300 years ago when the then speaker Sir John Trevor had been
found guilty 'of a high crime and misdemeanour' namely taking a bribe of one thousand guineas from the London Council to ensure passage of a bill through the Houses of Parliament. This occurred in 1695.When I saw the name Sir John Trevor in the press, it rang a bell and I therefore looked in the list which the Castle Rising History Group had prepared documenting MPs who had represented the Pocket Borough of Castle Rising. In the parliament of 1673-1677, the so-called "Cavalier" Parliament, Castle Rising Borough was in the "pocket" of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who among his various titles was also Lord of the Manor of Castle Rising from 1652-1677.
The two members representing the Borough in the Cavalier Parliament were Sir John Trevor and Samuel Pepys. The Dictionary of National Biography reports that Sir John (he was knighted in 1671 by ingratiating himself to Charles II) had acquired the seat at Castle Rising for £60. His involvement with Castle Rising was short lived and there is no evidence that he ever visited the Borough. In the next Parliament he represented another Pocket Borough Bene Alston in Devon. A Welshman, he finally represented his own region in 1681 by becoming representative for the county of Denbighshire, where he had been born.
Trained at the Inner Temple, he was called to the Bar in 1661 at the early age of 24. He became an expert in handling gambling transactions and appeared to concentrate on seamier aspects of the law. He appears to have been good at his profession and advanced rapidly, becoming a King’s counsel in 1673. He was a Tory, anti-Catholic and giving strong support to the monarchy.
In physical appearance he was strongly cross-eyed, which gave members of parliament problems in "catching his eye"
Michael Martin may be interested in knowing that Sir John continued to have a successful career in politics after his embarrassments in the House of Commons in 1695. He died at the age of 80 with a wealth estimated at £60,000, an enormous sum in those days.
Fred Cooke 22 May 2009.
Successful evening
The group were hosts to the King's Lynn and West Norfolk Archaeological Society on Friday 22nd of May 2009. The evening consisted of a tour around the village, stopping at points of interest where members of the history group gave a brief talk. These included the Church, Market Cross, Trinity Hospital, Night Marsh, Saxon Salt Industry and the Old Quay.
Our History Exhibition 14th-15 May 2008
The group hosted a successful history weekend event on the 14th/15th of May 2008, held in the Reading Rooms at Castle Rising by kind permission of Lord Howard. Our exhibition consisted many displays two of which were artifacts provided by Norman and Kevin, artefacts from the castle and metal detecting finds from the region. There was an outstanding display of various match stick models created by a local skilled and patient man from North Wootton . The main part of the exhibition were the display boards containing the majority of the groups research, spanning over one thousand years of local history.
We also had a fantastic time line created by John Bull, the printed sheet once opened out, covered over twelve feet in length. However the highlight of the weekend turn out to be our video show, a home video taken in the seventies, showed village life including local land marks now disappeared. The converted video copy on DVD was gratefully received for the event.
We had over five hundred visitors over the weekend, in fact as many as the group could handle for the size of the venue, considering most of the visitors spent over forty-five minutes with us far longer than we expected. Amongst the visitors was Dr. Paul Richards a former tutor of some of the group, studying local history. Dr Paul Richards made some very positive comments on our exhibition during his visit, he said "we set a very good example for future students thinking of forming a history group, and he was please to see we had used many documented sources and made references " for which we are very grateful.
An article and photo also appeared in the local Lynn News which was a nice piece of publicity for the group. Lord and Lady Howard were also impressed with the groups work as they made their way around the displays.