Pictures and details of some of the old records currently held by the Parish

The Parish Registers and other documents relating to Scarning (from 1538 to 1991) are held at Norfolk Record Office www.archives.norfolk.gov.uk/. Some of the items currently held by the Parish are illustrated here. The bulk of the papers and documents prior to 1930 are all hand written, some perfectly legibly and others less so. The earliest typewritten letter is dated March 1895. (The modern typewriter was invented in 1873 but clearly did not come into widespread use for many years.)

The parish clerk still had the iron box, but it has now been discarded as the bottom had almost completely rusted away. Here are some of the contents.

This hand written valuation list together with supplemental pages date from 1904 with amendments up to 1921. They detail the occupiers and owners of every piece of land and every building in the parish. The estimated rental and rateable values are recorded. All the pages of this document have been scanned and can be downloaded here valuation list (this is a 2.7Mb PDF file)

The overseers were responsible for the collection and distribution of of monies for the Poor Rate.Mr George Lane Miller was also the school master.

OVERSEERS OF THE POOR

The office of Overseer of the Poor was established by the Poor Law Act1597/8 and made obligatory by the Poor Relief Act of 1601.The parish appointed two or more Overseers of the Poor each year. Their duties were to levy a poor rate and to supervise its distribution.The supervision and distribution duties were given to the Guardians of the Poor in 1834 and the Overseers became merely assessors and collectors.The office was abolished by the Rating and Valuation Act 1925. The overseers’ accounts record their expenditure in great detail, Poor Rates were levied annually and the income was recorded in poor rate books. These list parish householders who were not paupers and the amount paid. Parish valuations, included lists of owners and occupiers of properties within the parish.

These three books (1925/6, 1926/7 and 1930/1) record in alphabetical order cottagers who were entitled to bread in December and January and indicate the address the family members also entitled. The pages from the 1930/31 book can be seen here here

Receipt book detailing the Precept.

Interesting old Barclays bank book. Covers the period 1907-1922, the page shown here shows all the transactions for 1913! There are two other similar books.

Monthly statements of rates collected 1912-1920

Water stained rate book for 1918 detailing occupiers,and owners of land and buildings, the rateable value and rates collected.

Overseers account book

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This little Charity Account book details transactions from 1829 to 1907. The main expenditure is for bread for the Poor.

One of many Balance sheets.

Hand written letters interesting jury list and register of electors have lists of residents. The 1921 register has been scanned and converted to text via OCR and is available on the people page on this site.

 

Yet another account book.

A hand written record of the over 60's club covering twenty years, includes pictures of members with their names. If you would like to see all the pages click on this link wednesday club (this is a rather large file and may take some time to download.)

Inside pages £223 was collected

One of these has been scanned and converted to text via OCR and is available on the people page on this site. There are several more up covering many of the years to 1980.

Gravestones

A record is kept in the church and anyone wishing to consult the register should contact Alf Webdale on 01362 687558 or Alan Glister on 01362 696674 who will ensure that the enquirer has access to the register. 

The original record made by Scarning WI as part of the Norfolk Federation of Womens Institutes project to record Norfolk churchyards is available online.Click on the picture to search records up to 1981. Sue Rockley has prepared an Alphabetical list of inscriptons which is based on the above record prepared in 1980. Since 1980 more of the headstones have become illegible and some grave markers are no longer in place. Brackets indicate where the text is illegible. Click on the green link to access the list and view a plan of the churchyard with numbered gravestones.