Salthouse Presentation

9. Presentation on Salthouse (buried) Parish Register

Salthouse, which is a coastal hamlet along the Norfolk coast, not far from Blakeney, may or may not

have been involved with members of the Powdich family who lived close by. Of interest however was

to discover what happened to the Salthouse post-1538 Parish Registers, the reason why they have

been involved in a major conservation project, and what could be discovered from the writing on their

preserved pages. This talk was kindly provided by Norfolk Record Office.

For all those who were able

to come to the evening's

presentation, a most

interesting talk awaited them.

Antoinette Curtis, Conservator

at Norfolk Record Office, and her fellow worker, Jenny Watts, who is the Archivist responsible for

Parish Records - both of whom had closely worked together on the Salthouse buried Register

Project (at the NRO), had kindly come to Morston Village Hall (together with their husbands) to

provide the Powditch family and their guests with a special Presentation on the 1538-c1713

Salthouse Parish Register.

Not just any Register, this one had a very special story, inasmuch as it dated from c1538, and during

the Second World War, the Vicar and a Churchwarden? of nearby Salthouse, had taken it upon

themselves to bury the Parish Register in order to 'stop it falling into German hands should the UK

be invaded'

A page (1601-1603) from Salthouse (buried) Parish Register. Copyright Norfolk Record Office 2007

The War over, the Register

was not retrieved until

circa 1949, by which time, the

damp had permeated through

the sacking and paper and

had not only damaged much

of the Register, but several of

the pages (parchment) had

started to rot away; parts of

which were already missing.

By the time the Parish Register

was deposited in the NRO

(circa 1963), it was considered

far too fragile to be produced

for anyone to view, so there it

lay in the Archives until the

day arrived when a local

individual decided to try and

raise money for the

When the Vicar originally dug

the hole and buried the

it in paper and then in sacking

before it was laid in the earth.

Now restored, but still in a

fragile state, the Register

has been filmed (2006), both

in monochrome and in colour,

and it has been - over the

past 6 months - carefully

and methodically transcribed;

the current situation being that

in c.April 2007, a CD-ROM

will be published and put on sale, and that the latter will, besides images of all the pages, also

include transcripts of same, a history,and a fully searchable database of names etc.

Full details of the progress of the Register's conservation, and also of the CD-ROM can be viewed

at either of the following links;-

Parish Register Overview	OR	Parish Register Publicity
In 2006 I was invited by Val Fiddian, author, publisher and webmaster of the Salthouse Project to become involved with some of the transcription of the Salthouse (buried) Parish Register (c1538-1713). Thanks to Val, I have not only been privileged to share access to the excellent photographs (by ) of the Register's pages, but to have been part of the excellent Palaeographer Jean Jeggo and her transcriptions and throughout I have had access to all the images, the names, dates and events, as well as to the trial CD-ROMs, etc

Some examples of c16 letters in

Salthouse Parish Register

Following the conclusion of the Presentation, and

questions from the floor, many thanks were given to

Antoinette and Jenny by John on behalf of everyone, for

a really interesting talk on such a fascinating subject.

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next part of our Journey.