About Reymerston

Reymerston is situated 5 miles south-east of East Dereham and is now part of the civil parish of Garveston. The first recorded mention of it is in the Domesday Book (1086) under the name "Raimerestuna" (Raimer's or Regenmaer's settlement). It was a township of Mitford Hundred, which owed suit to the Bishop of Ely before the Reformation, and Ely also had the overlordship of Reymerston's principal manor, Calveley. This manor became at various times part of the estates of the Wodehouses of Kimberley, the Longes of Spixworth, and finally the Gurdons of Letton Hall who owned four farms in the parish. Another extensive estate, of which the Georgian Reymerston Hall is the legacy, was built up during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the Grigson family, descendants of a rector of Hardingham. Both estates were broken up shortly before the First World War. At its most populated, in 1851, Reymerston had 340 inhabitants, comprising 65 households.

Today the number of households is little changed (just over 70), but the age and social profile is of course very different and the population much smaller. Over the last 70 years the village has successively lost school (1933), pub (1971) and shop/post office (1999).