Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen

Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen
South Wiggenhall
Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen South Wiggenhall;
	Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen Location within Norfolk
Area	17.76 km2 (6.86 sq mi)
Population	729 (2011)
• Density	41/km2 (110/sq mi)
OS grid reference	TF591104
• London	132 km (82 mi) WbS
Civil parish	Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen;
District	West Norfolk;
Shire county	Norfolk;
Region	East;
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	King's Lynn
Postcode district	PE34
Dialling code	01553
Police	Norfolk
Fire	Norfolk
Ambulance	East of England
UK Parliament	South West Norfolk;
Website	Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen Parish Council
	List of places UK England Norfolk 52°40′30″N 0°21′37″E / 52.674925°N 0.360317°E

Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen is a civil parish and village in the English county of Norfolk. It is 6 miles (9.7 km) south of the town of King's Lynn on the west bank of the River Great Ouse. It covers an area of 17.76 km² (6.86 sq mi) and had a population of 729 in 304 households in the 2011 census.^[1] For the purposes of local government, it falls within the district of King's Lynn and West Norfolk.

The villages name means 'Wicga's nook of land'.^[2]

In the Domesday Book of 1085, it appears that the parish and Wiggenhall St Germans were at that time a single parish named Wiggenhall, of modest size and sharing half a water mill on the old Wiggenhall Eau (the watercourse which ran through the parish before the Great Ouse arrived in the 13th century) with Runcton Holme.

The earliest evidence of settlement is therefore the parish church of St Mary Magdalen, which is situated in the very northeastern corner of the parish. Most of the early settlement appears to have occurred here, probably due to the presence of a levee along the western side of the River Great Ouse, made of silts deposited by a former watercourse, the Wiggenhall Eau.

The church itself is largely Perpendicular in style, but the tower may date from as early as the 13th century, which is corroborated by the entry in the Register of Crabhouse Priory^[3] which tells of the nuns taking refuge at the church from a flood in the early 13th century. Today the church is almost entirely red brick, with a façade that is the result of a thorough 15th-century rebuilding.

The parish contains two centres of population: around the parish church in the north, and to the south of Crabhouse Priory in the far south, now known as Stowbridge, which also extends into neighbouring parishes.