Facts about Diss
General Info
Diss is a market town and electoral ward in South Norfolk, England, close to Norfolk’s border with Suffolk. It had a population of 7,572 in 2011. Diss railway station is on the Great Eastern Main Line from London to Norwich. The town lies in the valley of the River Waveney, around a mere covering 6 acres (2.4 ha) and up to 18 feet (5.5 m) deep, although there are another 51 feet (16 m) of mud.
Diss History
The town takes its name from dic an Anglo-Saxon word meaning either ditch or embankment. Diss has a number of historic buildings, including an early 14th-century parish church and an 1850s corn exchange still in operation. At the time of Edward the Confessor, Diss was part of the Hartismere hundred of Suffolk, and it was recorded as such in the Domesday Book. It is recorded as being in the king’s possession as demesne of the Crown, there being at that time a church and a glebe of 24 acres.
In 1152 Richard de Lucy received the right to hold a market in Diss, and prior to 1161, he gave a third of a hundred at Diss (Heywood or Hewode) together with the market in frank marriage with his daughter Dionisia to Sir Robert de Mountenay. After Richard de Lucy’s death in 1179, the inheritance of the other two parts of the hundred of Diss passed to his daughter Maud, who married Walter Fitz-Robert.
