Thorpe Market Village History
The earliest record of Thorpe Market is found in the Doomsday Book of 1086. At that time it was a well-equipped farming village with a population of about a hundred and fifty, including a good proportion of free and semi-free peasants. In 1275 the Lord of the Manor, Pauline Peyvere, was granted the right to hold a Market in the village, which is how the name "Market" arose. This market had totally disappeared by the eighteenth century, probably much earlier.

In 1381 a Norwich dyer called Geoffrey (sometimes John) Litster, who was the leader of the peasant's revolt in Norfolk, mustered his troops on the village green at Thorpe Market before marching on North Walsham. Shortly afterwards he was defeated in battle in North Walsham by the Bishop of Norwich, Walter Dispencer.

Since before the Norman Conquest (1066) the village of Thorpe Market had been split into a number of different manors, and this situation continued until after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the sixteenth century. Coxford Priory, an Augustinian house in East Rudham, had been given part of Thorpe in the late twelfth century, including the church. The extent of their lands here is difficult to judge, but we do know that they had a fish pond, because there was a dispute between the Priory and local residents regarding fishing rights.
There are only two likely sites for a fishery, due north of the present church, near the boundary with Southrepps, or near Hagon's Beck on the boundary with Roughton. Both of these sites are some way distant to the church, so if the Priory lands were continuous they must have been quite extensive.

After the reorganisation sparked by the Dissolution, the bulk of the village seems to have been reunited around 1560 under the ownership of Sir John Gresham, Lord Mayor of London. He lived in Kent, but left the manor to one of his younger sons, Edmund, who was buried in St Margaret's church in 1586. The unity of the manor did not last long. In 1577 the former Coxford manor was for some reason taken from Edmund and eventually came into the hands of the Rant family. The Rants and their descendents held the title of the manor for the following four centuries.

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