Brandon in 1842
Brandon is in the hundred of Lackford, about 17 miles north-north-west of Bury, through Thetford. The area of the parish is 5,570 acres ; the population in 1831 was 2,065, barely one-tenth agricultural. The village consists of three streets which converge and form one main street leading by a neat stone bridge over the Little Ouse river into Norfolk. The houses are for the most part well built. The church is a little out of the village on the south-west, and is a good structure. The market has been discontinued for many years ; but there are three yearly fairs. There are extensive rabbit-warrens in the neighbourhood, of which one alone is said to have furnished to the London market 40,000 rabbits yearly. Continuous strata of the finest flint occur in the chalk near the town, and are dug and manufactured into gun-flints, a branch of industry which in 1831 gave employment to 60 men. Considerable trade is carried on in corn, malt, coal, timber, and other goods, favoured by the navigation of the Little Ouse or Brandon river, which passes on the north side of the village. The duke of Hamilton and Brandon takes his latter title from this village. There is an endowed free-school. |