Early history Breckland was used as an excavation site for flint tools around 2000 BC. During the
Iron Age, a fort was established on
Icknield Way at the site of Thetford Castle. Thetford was an important tribal centre for the
Iceni during the late Iron Age and early Roman period, with
Castle Hill and Gallows Hill being sites of particular note. During the Saxon period it was the principal centre of the eastern Heptarchy and a regular battle site between locals and the Viking invaders. A mint was built in Thetford in the 9th century. There is evidence of coins minted in Thetford from the time of King
Canute to the reign of
King John. A
monastery was established around 1020 and a
grammar school was operating since before the
Norman Conquest of 1066. The town greatly prospered during the reign of
Edward the Confessor (1042–1066), and at one point there were 944 free Burgesses living in Thetford. The
Domesday Book of 1086 estimated the population of Thetford to have grown to between 4000 and 4500 people, which would have been the sixth largest town in Britain at the time. The bishopric had moved here from
North Elmham in 1071 and stayed in Thetford until moving to
Norwich in 1096. In 1067–1069,
Thetford Castle was built on the ruins of an Iron Age fort at Castle Hill. It is believed to have been constructed either by
Ralph Guader, Earl of East Anglia, or
Roger Bigod, his successor as Earl, who is known to have ordered
Bungay and
Framlingham castles to have been built in Suffolk. In 1104, Bigod founded the
Cluniac Priory of St Mary. The priory grew rapidly, with an influx of monks from
Lewes, and in 1107 it was moved to a larger site on the other side of the river where the ruins remain today. It became the largest and most important religious institution in Thetford. The Norfolk Lent
Assizes were held at Thetford from 1264 because there was only one Assize for both Norfolk and
Suffolk. Thetford, being close to the border between the two, was convenient for both. However, after much pressure, an Act of Parliament was passed in 1832 to transfer them to Norwich. In 1373,
John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, was responsible for altering the administrative makeup of the town, promoting the mayor to its most important official, subjecting the bailiff and the coroner to report to him. Thetford had its own coroner, courts and legal officials, without depending on those for the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.
Tudor history to present , 1540
Henry VIII sent
Anne Boleyn's father,
Thomas, as part of a Commission to assess Thetford in 1527. The Commission concluded that the town had fallen into "great ruin and decay" and that the burgesses of the town had squandered rents and dues which belonged to the King. Thetford was struck hard by the
Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s and 1540s. A formal complaint was raised by the mayors and burgesses to Thomas Cromwell in 1539, arguing that many of the town's inhabitants would fall into extreme poverty because their livelihoods depended on pilgrims visiting Thetford.
Thetford Priory was closed down in 1540 and fell into the possession of
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. In 1574,
Elizabeth I granted a Charter of Incorporation to the town, setting up a governing body of a mayor, ten burgesses and twenty commoners to meet in the Guildhall and redevelop the town's main streets, houses and shops. Elizabeth arrived in Thetford on 27 August 1578 to survey developments, holding a Privy Council meeting at Sir Edward Clere's Place House, now Nunnery Place. A lot of material from the decaying priory and religious buildings in the town were used to save building costs in the building of King's House and other buildings in Thetford. In 1819 there was a local desire to develop Thetford into a spa town modelled on
Bath,
Cheltenham and
Harrogate. A pump room was built over the spring at Nuns Bridges and the Thetford Mineral Spring Company was established. The mayor financed a new gravel path along the bank of the Little Ouse, which was named Spring Walk. The plan did not succeed; by 1838 the pump room was closed. In 1835 the old Corporation of Thetford was abolished, and a new one set up a mayor, four aldermen and twelve councillors. The town was represented by two MPs until 1868 when it lost a seat to Scotland. Dr
Allan Glaisyer Minns, born in
Inagua, the
Bahamas, became the first black man to become a mayor in Britain when he was elected as Mayor of Thetford in 1904. In 1912, more than 30,000 troops participated in military manoeuvres on the heath land outside the town. Over 700 men from the town fought in
World War I; a memorial was erected in 1921 with the names of over 100 men who died during the war. Locally in the wooded and sand like areas, the trial tests of the first tank took place in total secrecy in early 1915. At the end of
World War II, Thetford still only had a population of around 5000 people. In the 1950s, the borough council drew up a plan with the
London County Council to relocate Londoners and several businesses to Thetford and double the population. ==Geography==