|
Gissing is a very small village of about 275 people in south Norfolk,
just about five miles from Diss, our local market town, and roughly 20 miles south of Norwich, and about the same distance
north of Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, the two big towns in the area. It's about 100 miles northeast of London.
It was traditionally a farming village, as the land in the parish is level and fertile. Until the death of Sir Robert
Kemp, the last baronet, in 1936, most of the parish was owned by your family, including most of the village property.
For generations, the bulk of the local population were Kemp family tenants.
Today, Gissing has gone in a very short time from being an active
farming village to being a commuter village, to being a retirement village. The farmland is still there, of course,
but now it's owned by three or four families, who do all the work themselves. As in the U.S., mechanization has meant
the the labour of past years simply isn't necessary anymore. Families, which used to be huge, are small now, and there
are only about a dozen school age children in the village, in contrast to the 80 or 90 odd of a century ago.
The most notable feature of the village is the church. It's
a medieval building with a round tower ... a Norfolk speciality! You may be aware that many members of your family are
buried both in the church itself and in the churchyard. The North Chapel is called the Kemp Chapel, and there are a
number of memorials to various Kemps in it.
Gissing Hall was built in the 1820's by one of your ancestors, and
was lived in by your family until 1936. It is now a country house hotel. The site of a medieval Gissing Hall lies
in a field a few hundred yards to the southwest of the present building. The story, possibly incorrect, is that
it was ordered torn down by the Commonwealth government in the 1650's as a punishment for the Kemp family's support of the
King during the English civil war. Be that as it may, nothing remains of the buildiing except the moat. At this
time of year, the site is covered with snowdrops and aconites, so that it's called "Snowdrop Island", and it's a sort of l
tradition for local people to put on their wellies, and tromp out through the mud to have a look!
In 2000, the village mounted a millenium exhibition on local history.
Several Kemp descendants here in England very kindly contributed information and artifacts for it. Among other items,
we had Sir Robert Kemp's army chest, and a wheel from his car! (We had a photograph of the car, and a local collector
looked at it, and said "I've got a wheel from that car! You might as well have it for the show.")
Your may also know that your family was instrumental in saving the
village school for local use. When the school was built in 1876, it was built by the county board of education.
When it closed in 1977, the county council assumed they owned it, and planned to sell it for conversion to a private house.
They found, however, that while they did indeed own the building, the land had been donated by the Kemp family for the express
purpose of building the school, and there was a clause in the deeds stating that, in the event the school ever closed, the
land would revert to the family. When the appropriate descendants were contacted, they said they were happy for the
site to remain under local control as long as it was used for educational purposes, but that, if it were to be sold, they
would exercise their rights of retention to the land. That gave a group of local parents their opportunity to set up
a pre-school in the building. A quarter of a century on, the Gissing Children's Centre is a thriving concern, attracting
families from all over the area. Ballet lessons are given in the building at weekends, and a youth club for local teen-agers
is held on Friday nights.
Kemp Chapel
The north chancel chapel is the Kemp family mausoleum, and their memorials line the walls. Some are very grand, particularly
in comparison with one of the starkest, simplest sanctuaries in Norfolk. A low, curved arch into the chapel is probably 18th
century, and the contemporary screen below it is a curiosity.
|
