The information has been entered exactly as written in the original book. Sorry it's long-winded, but that's the way they did it then.

STALHAM is a parish and market town, with station on the Eastern and Midlands railway and is a polling place for the Eastern division of the county, pleasantly situated on the high road from North Walsham to Yarmouth, near the navigable Ant and 1 1/2 miles from Wayford Bridge; from the former place it is 8 miles south-east and from the latter 16 north-west and 14 miles north-east from Norwich, in Tunstead and Happing petty sessional division, Happing hundred, Smallborough Union, Walsham county court district, rural deanery of Waxham Happing division, archdeaconry of Norfolk and diocese of Norwich.

The church of St Mary is a fine structure of flint with stone dressings, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave, aisles, south porch and a western tower, which has been injured by lightning and contains 1 bell; the chancel was reconstructed in 1827, and in 1886 its foof was raised to the original pitch, the walls, floors and windows entirely restored, and the east window filled with stained glass, at the sole expense of the lay rector, George Randall Johnson esq. MA of Wellington, New Zealand. In 1854 the nave and aisles were repaired and the church reseated; there is a finely carved octagonal font with representations of the Apostles and the Baptism and Crucifixion of our Saviour; the church was restored in the chancel at the expense of the vicar; in 1872-3 the south porch was built, new floors laid down and windows inserted in the aisles and in 1886 an old gallery was removed, seats for the Sunday school children placed beneath the tower and a stained window erected by the vicar at the east end of the south aisle in memory of his sister, Catherine Nevelle White, and of his mother, Charlotte White. There is a brass to the Riches family, dated 1624 and another, with figures of a civilian and his wife, circa 1460. The are 350 sittings, 200 being free.

The Register dates from the year 1560. The living is a vicarage, average tithe rent-charge, £180, gross yearly value £198, including 32 acres of glebe, with residence, of which 8 1/2 are in the parish, in the gift of James Sewell Neville esq BA JP and held since 1852 by the Rev Joseph Nevelle White BA of Corpus Christi college, Cambridge, who resides in the vicarage, adjoining the church. The Baptist chapel here, opened in October 1884, is an edifice of brick, seating 450 persons and has a Sunday school adjoining. The total cost, including site, was upwards of £2,000. The organ was erected at a further cost of about £200. There is also a small Wesleyan chapel here.

The river Ant affords facilities for landing coal, corn, malt and all kinds of merchandise. Stalham and Sutton Broads form a sheet of water connected with this river, three-quarters of a mile from south-west to north-east and 1mile from west to east. It is mostly overgrown with reeds, but there are two channels, one to Stalham and the other to Sutton. Here is a Corn Hall and a Police Staton. Tuesday is market day. The poor's allotment, of over 72 acres, awarded under the Inclosure Act of 1807 (47 George III) is let yearly to several tenants and the rents are distributed in money to such poor persons as are either natives or decendants of natives of this parish. A sum of £10, left by John Riches in 1626, was invested in house property, subseqantly sold for £80 and the money re-invested in the form of a loan towards the erection of the Smallburgh workhouse. At a later period, the enactments of the Local Government Boards having affected a change in the mode of electing the guardians, this sum was transferred to the vicar and churchwardens for the time being and by them invested in £3 per cent. Consols; the gross value of Riches' charity, of which this forms part, average £30 12s yearly, out of which a sum of 13s 4d is paid every year to the vicar.

In 1718 Mrs Catherin Smith left six acres of land, called "the Long Closes" for the use and benefit of the vicar for the time being, subject to a half-yearly payment of 8s at Christmas and Easter, for the purchase of bread for the poor and of 4s to the parish clerk for keeping clean her monument in th chancel of the church. The parish consists of two manors, the trustees of Robert Cooke esq are lords of the manor of Linford and Wilds and George Randal Johnson esq is lord of the manor of Stalham Hall and chief impropriator of the rectorial tithes, which amount to £363 and are divided amongst eight impropriators. The principal landowners are James Sewell Neville esq BA JP of Sloley, and the trustees of Robert Cooke esq and George Randa Johnson esq of Wellington, New Zealand. The soil is fine strong land, subsoil, brick-earth, sand and and gravel. The chief crops are wheat, oats and barley, roots and beans. The area is 1,792 acres; rateable value, £4,160; the population in 1881 was 852.

Parish Clerk, George Stimpson

Post, Money Order & Telegraph Office
• Savings Bank & Annuity & Insurance Office (Sub-Office, Letters should have S.o. Norfolk added)
• Mrs Emily Cattermoul, sub-postmistres.
• Letters received from Norwich by mail cart & by train from Yarmouth. Deliveries commence at 7am and 4pm, dispatched at 4.10pm and 5.20 pm.
• On sundays they are delivered at 7am, dispatched at 4.10pm.

Insurance Agents:-

• Alliance Fire & Life, A Daniels
  
• Norwich Union Fire & Life, J Barcham.
  
• Phoenix Fire, J Meale

Police Station, Alfred Cooper, inspector and one constable

Public Officers

• Admiralty Surgeon & Agent, Norman Hendrie Walker MB.
  
• Medical Officer & Public Vaccinator, Stalham District, Smallburgh Union, Norman Hendrie Walker MB
• Assistant Overser & Surveyor & Collector of Taxes, Robert Joseph Perfitt.
  
• A School Board of 5 members was formed in 1875 for the parishes of Stalham & Brumstead, J Meale, clerk to the boards; William Henry Cooke Ingham, attendance officer.
• Board School (mixed), opened in June 1878 and enlarged in 1887 and will now hold 149 children; average attenance, 130; Charles John Trigge, master; Mrs Trigge, mistress.
• Railway Station (Eastern & Midlands), Charles William Dyball, staton master.

Conveyance to:-

NORWICH - Leatherdale's coach, from Maids Head inn to Royal hotel, on mon, wed and sat. at 8am returning same days at 4.45pm.

WATER CONVEYANCE to and from Yarmouth, from Mrs Sarah Burton's Wharf .

CARRIER TO NORWICH - George Stimpson, to 'Three Horseshoes' Tombland, every wed and sat and returns the same day.

Private Residents
Bates Robert, The Laurels Blanchflower Timothy Coleman, Leo House Borrett Arthur, Chetwund House Davison Daniel, Ebenezer Cottage Gaze Charles Jay Mrs Legg Mark Hugh Lingwood Miss	Middleton Robert, Sunnyside Reynolds Miss Riches Mrs Salmon John Savory William, Hawley house Walker Norman Hendrie BA, Vicarage Woods Rev Edward Burchells BA (Baptist)

Commercial
See separate page