Map - Mattishall

Mattishall is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated 13 mi west of Norwich and 4 mi east of Dereham, at the geographical centre of Norfolk.

It covers an area of 11.89 km2 and had a population of 2,631 in 1,110 households at the 2001 census. For the purposes of local government, it falls within the Elmham and Mattishall division of Norfolk County Council and the Mattishall ward of Breckland District Council.

It is in the Mid Norfolk Parliamentary Constituency.

The villages name probably means, 'Ma(e)tt's nook of land'.

It is situated on a plateau of boulder clay left by the glaciers about 300,000 years ago. The soil in the area varies from sands around the neighbouring Mattishall Burgh to stickier clays around Mattishall.

Evidence of human activity in these villages reaches back to the period between 8000 and 1000 BC. The discovery in 1968 of a hoard of 110 silver coins provides a link with the Roman period. However no proof of Roman occupation has been found so far. The four panels of the Mattishall village sign, erected in 1984, depict different periods of history from Roman, the Domesday Survey of 1086, medieval to the mid-twentieth century.

The All Saints Church in Mattishall dates from the late fourteenth century, possibly replacing an earlier church on the site. The patron is Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and it is thought that Dr. Caius was instrumental in initiating the building of the larger church. Saint Peter's Church, in Mattishall Burgh, is much smaller and is mainly late thirteenth century.

Mattishall has been divided in a religious sense for many years, first with the Reformation, then with the growth of Quakerism. The Quakers established a Meeting House in 1687. Almost 100 years later the Old Moor Congregational Chapel was built. Both had their own burial ground. When it became uneconomical to continue at Old Moor, the Congregationalists transferred to their Lecture Room in Welgate built in 1829. It is now the United Reformed Church. Primitive Methodism gained a following in the nineteenth century but it was not until 1900 that a site was found for a permanent meeting place along the main road. The second half of the twentieth century saw the establishment of the Evangelical Church.

During the reign of Edward VI, cleric Matthew Parker married Margaret Harlestone of Mattishall. He became the first Archbishop of Canterbury to be appointed under Elizabeth I. Local tradition has it that the house behind the butcher's shop in Church Plain was the Harlestone family home.

Some of the very old buildings in Mattishall are hidden behind brick and mortar skins and Georgian facades, but others remain to be admired. Of the three nineteenth century mills, the bases of two remain. One has been converted recently into a holiday cottage.