Facts about Harleston
General Info
Harleston is a town 16 miles (26 km) from Norwich, in the civil parish of Redenhall with Harleston, in the South Norfolk district, in the county of Norfolk, England. In 2018 it had an estimated population of 5067. Harleston is on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, close to the River Waveney. Harleston has 2 markets every Wednesday.
Harleston has a high school called Archbishop Sancroft High School on Wilderness Lane, a primary school called Harleston C.E. Primary Academy on School Lane, a football club called Harleston Town F.C. on Wilderness Lane, a library on Swan Lane, a museum called Harleston Museum, a police station on 12 Swan Lane and a church called St John the Baptist. Harleston once had a railway station that closed in 1953, the nearest is now Diss which is 10 miles away.
History
The name “Harleston” possibly means “Heoruwulf” or “Harolds Stone”. Harleston was recorded in the Domesday Book as Heroluestuna. Harleston was a chapelry in Reddenhall parish. Many Georgian residences and much earlier buildings, with Georgian frontages, line the streets of Harleston. Although there is no record of a royal charter, Harleston has been a market town since at least 1369 and still holds a Wednesday market.
One of the plots to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I was to be launched on Midsummer Day 1570 at the Harleston Fair by proclamations and the sound of trumpets and drums. The Elizabethan play Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay features this in one of its scenes. The right to hold an eight-day fair during the period of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist was granted to Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk by Henry III in 1259.
