There are deep roots to the past, for here the Romans pitched camp, and there the English built their church on a mound either found or raised by the Roman legions. There have been findings of Bronze Age swords and burial urns of early Celtic tribes.

The village was essentially two joined settlements, Bergh and Apton, along the NW/SE axis. There is one remaining church that of St Peter & St Paul, in what was Bergh. This is a fine building with 14th Century origins that stands at the highest point of the village overlooking the river Chet that runs along the village southern boundary.

Until medieval times we were two villages, separated by Church Road that still runs as it did then, generally westward to Poringland. Berg (or Berc) was south of that line, centred on the church of St Peter & St Paul that now serves the whole parish. The northern settlement Appelton (or perhaps Appelsco - the name, as with all places, varied over time) was served by the church of St Martin that has disappeared, but was in Dodger’s Lane on the land of present-day Church Farm.

Bergh Apton was famous for its fruit orchards – particularly cherries – in the days when East Anglian market gardeners daily supplied huge quantities of fresh produce to the Midlands through Norwich’s City Station. Names such as Alexander, Annis, Carver and Debbage, to name just the first four in Bergh Apton’s alphabetical order, were well-known and respected in this trade.

Bergh Apton Today

There is a single Shop/Post Office that is situated at the centre of the other (NW) extremity of the village, which also is the most densely populated part. It stocks a wide range of goods and has a positive attitude to the various needs of its clientele. However, by definition, it is some 2 miles from the other end of the village. There is no village Public House and thus the centre of activity tends to be the Village Hall which is heavily booked months in advance for a wide range of local activities. The village has no school within the Parish boundaries but uses the C of E VA Primary school in the adjoining village of Alpington and the Secondary school in Loddon, a small market town some 2 miles to the South East.

The village is widely known in Arts circles for its ‘Sculpture Trail’. These biennial Spring festivals display sculpture in some 15 to 20 village gardens ranging from those of large country houses to Local Authority houses. 8/10,000 visitors came on the trail of 2002 raising funds for local projects including its village hall, church, local school and the upkeep of its conservation trust lands.

The village has some venerable and substantial houses. The present Manor House on Threadneedle Street, an elegant Georgian building, replaced a much earlier one on the lands of the Dennys who occupied it for several hundred years. Their neighbours the Cookes lived in another fine mansion, Washingford House on Cooke’s Road. The families were united in marriage in the 1800s to become the Denny-Cookes, significant benefactor to the village until the line died out in this area in the 1960s.

Other houses of note were associated with farming. They include White House Farm at the top of Sunnyside that is a fine Grade II Listed example of the yeoman farmer’s domicile. Apton Manor on The Street was never a manor but was an important house nonetheless, being the farmhouse for Street Farm until the 1960s. The Clarkes, its owners in the early 1800s, were friends of William Cobbett of “Rural Rides” fame who was made welcome there during his controversial tours of agricultural England.

Although the village mainly now acts as dormitory for Norwich, Great Yarmouth and other centres of commercial and industrial activity, there is both a small brick-works and road-building/repair contractor within the Parish. There are considerable Professional, Artisan and Technical skills within the village including Engineering, Financial Services, Project Management, Cabinet making, House-building, Vehicle maintenance and public sector employment. Farming and market gardening remain the primary activities of the land in and around the village but, of course, the number of villagers employed in such activities is now very small.

Bergh Apton’s story is one of a community working on or supporting work on the land through good and bad from very early times. A large Anglo-Saxon settlement near the church, from which artefacts of some importance were recovered and are preserved by Norwich Castle museum, is an indication of our longevity as a village.

If you are new to Bergh Apton you will come to know more as you meet and talk to those interested in telling you about your new home village. It is quintessential rather than unique and we hope that you will come to realise how valuable that is.

By Derek Blake & John Ling, edited by Sally Leigh

Archive Parish Minutes

Archive Parish Council Minutes from 1987 onwards are available here