Breckles
Breckles is situated some five miles south east of Watton. It comprises some 1560 acres, just over one square mile (Whites 1845). In 1845 it had one hundred and sixty inhabitants whereas today it is home to sixty people in just twenty eight homes. These homes range from bungalows and cottages to a grand Elizabethan manor house. The size of Breckles has decreased so much that the village is now administered under the integrated Parish Council of Stow Bedon with Breckles: each community retains its own separate community status but has a single Parish Council to mutual benefit of each community. For such a small village, little known in its own locality and easily missed by today's fast moving traffic along the A1075, Breckles has a tremendous history.
For most of its history Breckles was part of a large estate and it was not until the final break up of the estate in 1911 that the independent community of today's Breckles began to emerge. The land and property from the estate is now in private hands and the land is largely given over to agriculture, mainly cereal and beet crops. There is a turkey farm, a pig farm, a dairy farm and two stud farms. One stud farm is for Welsh Cobs and one is for Arabs. Commercially, there is a small touring caravan park and adequate parking at the church for those wishing to use the public footpaths that criss-cross the area.
Breckles of the past
The name Breckles is thought to come from Brec a laes meaning 'the meadow by newly cleared land'. In the Middle Ages Breckles was actually called Breccles Magna, Great Breccles and had two sister villages to either side of it, Stow Breccles and Breccles Parva (Little Breckles). Breccles Parva is one of the lost villages of Norfolk and is thought to be on the current Shropham Hall estate.
Archaeological finds of flint tools and weapons, as well as other artefacts, show that the area around Breckles has a long association with people and settlement. Within the square mile, are the sites of a medieval moated farm, earthworks associated with the medieval village, plus evidence of a possible Anglo-Saxon settlement. A Saxo-Norman Church still stands in the village with a magnificent round tower, Norman font and Medieval rood screen. There is also a fabulous Elizabethan manor house, Breccles Hall, which retains the medieval spelling of the name and has its own colourful history. The Hall was host to several visits from important people including Elizabeth I; Queen Mary and Winston Churchill, as well as having its very own ghost. More recently Breckles played its part during the Second World War with its decoy airfield and had its fair share of interesting characters like John Stubbing who lived to the ripe old age of 107.
Breckles of the Future
If current trends continue, it would seem that for all its great past, Breckles is destined to become yet another lost village of Norfolk. Mechanisation and the increasing amount of land under the plough during the 20th century has meant a severe loss of jobs in the area and families and young people have moved away to find work. The village population has shrunk and houses or farms have become more widely divorced from their neighbours. There also appears to be a worrying trend in regional government to quietly drop Breckles as a place name and amalgamate the village with Stow Bedon. In the County Council's 1991 Census the list of parishes forming Breckland shows a number of linked parishes but Breckles is mentioned at all, not even as Stow Bedon with Breckles. Both County and District Councils also just refer to Stow Bedon Parish No 95, dropping the name Breckles and there is no roadside sign announcing the village of Breckles when coming along the A1075 from the north. It is hoped, however, that this website will help to put Breckles back on the map.
