Village History

The origins of the settlement at Knapton are unknown. Odd pieces of flint tools, "pot-boilers", scrapers and so on have been found, implying that the undulating ground between Hall Lane and the B1145 road, which is the boundary with Swafield, was used, if not settled in Neolithic times.

In his "Portrait of Norfolk" David Yaxley notes that the opposite, eastern boundary, with Paston "has hedges that date only from the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, although the boundary itself goes back to before the Conquest.". At the Conquest "Kanapatone" was valued at 20 shillings. By the Domesday Survey in 1086 it had risen to 60 shillings.

The name of the parish has been variously explained. Walter Rye put forward a theory that several Norfolk village names reflected names in Scandinavia, and in his "History of Norfolk" connected Knapton with Knappen in Denmark. Modern scholarship suggests "Cnapa", an Old English personal name, and "tun", which means settlement, farm or enclosure.

No church is mentioned in 1086, although Trunch, Mundesley, Paston and Swafield all had theirs. Apart from various wills, proved in the 13 and 1400s, there are few mentions of Knapton in medieval records. The bishops' lists of priests instituted to the rectory provide the names carved on a board in the north-west corner of the nave of the church.

The only mention of the parish in the famous Paston Letters is in some rhymed Latin verses written by the Seneschal of the Earl of Oxford. They are dated 20th July, but no year is given. There were, and are, two manors in Knapton. One of them was in the hands of the earldom of Oxford and was handed to Richard, Duke of Gloucester (afterwards King Richard III) during the Wars of the Roses by Elizabeth, widow of an earl executed for his loyalty to the House of Lancaster. The present names of the manors, Knapton Bromholm or Greene and Knapton Cecils, commemorate the priory or families which have held them. In the seventeenth century Knapton "Greenes" was bought by Dr Bernard Hale, Master of St. Peter's College, Cambridge. When he died in 1663, he left it and the patronage of the church (the right to nominate the Rector) to the Master and Fellows of Peterhouse. They still hold this right, though now the parish is part of the Trunch Group of Parishes. Some of the later history is covered in Knapton Personalities.

Some Knapton Buildings
In his great work "The Buildings of England" Sir Nikolaus Pevsner chose to describe three Knapton buildings, Knapton House, Knapton Hall and Knapton Old Hall. In the 1997 edition, revised by Bill Wilson, they are described on page 582. Knapton House and Knapton Hall were built in the early 1800s and have features of that Regency Period. There is an attractive cottage of the same date at the cross roads in the centre of the village. It bears the initials A.W. and the date 1805, the year of the Battle of Trafalgar. In the early 20th century it was the village Post Office. The Old Hall has parts dating from the late 1500s but has been added to and altered over the years.

The Methodist Church began life as a Baptist Meeting House, as its font for baptism by immersion suggested. After careful restoration and development it provides a homely and attractive place for worship. Considerable new building has been done over the last forty or so years and the planning laws have ensured that the work has been sympathetic to the existing village. Similarly, barn and cottage conversions have been sensitively carried out and add to the attraction of the parish.