Wymondham held its annual feast on the weekend of 6 July 1549 and a play in honour of St Thomas Becket, the co-patron of Wymondham Abbey, was performed.

One of their first targets was Sir John Flowerdew, a lawyer and landowner at Hethersett who was unpopular for his role as overseer of the demolition of Wymondham Abbey ( part of which was the parish church ) during the dissolution of the monasteries and for enclosing land.

Kett had been prominent among the parishioners in saving their parish church when Wymondham Abbey was demolished and this had led to conflict with Flowerdew.

Kett was hanged from the walls of Norwich Castle on 7 December 1549 ; on the same day William was hanged from the west tower of Wymondham Abbey.

* Wymondham Abbey in Norfolk is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, a Grade I Listed Building, and lies in Wymondham Conservation Area.

Wymondham Abbey ( pronounced Windham ) is situated in the town of Wymondham in Norfolk, England.

Disputes between the Wymondham and St. Albans monks were quite common, and in 1448, following a successful petition to the king, the Pope granted Wymondham the right to become an Abbey in its own right.

King Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries brought about the closure of Wymondham Abbey, which was surrendered to the King in 1538.

* Wymondham Abbey Homepage

* Wymondham Abbey Images

Wymondham Abbey is the Church of England parish church.

Wymondham station is the junction for the Mid-Norfolk Railway, although their trains, running 11. 5 miles ( 19 km ) north to Dereham operate from the separate Wymondham Abbey station.

* Wymondham Abbey

He became a monk at St Albans, where he appears to have passed the whole of his monastic life, excepting a period from 1394 to 1396 during which he was prior of Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England, another Benedictine house.

The main religious houses in the medieval diocese were the Benedictine Abbeys of Bury St Edmunds, Wymondham, and St Benet's of Hulm, the cathedral priory of Norwich, along with the Cistercian Abbey of Sibton, the only Cistercian Abbey in East Anglia ( the ruins now privately owned by the Levett-Scrivener family ), and the abbeys of the Augustinian Canons at Wendling, Langley, and Laystone.

Class 101 in early BR green and whiskers livery at Wymondham Abbey station, August 2009

Passenger services between Dereham and Wymondham commenced in 1999, with the opening of Wymondham Abbey railway station.

The monastery was founded in 1107 by William d ' Aubigny, Chief Butler to King Henry I. William was a prominent Norfolk landowner, with estates in Wymondham and nearby New Buckenham whose grandfather had fought for William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings.

This was John's property, left to his final monastery at Wymondham.

It is the Anglican parish church of Wymondham, but it started life as a Benedictine priory.

Kett's rebellion, or " the commotion time " as it was also called in Norfolk, began in July 1549 in the small market town of Wymondham, nearly ten miles south-west of Norwich.

Kett was about 57 years old and was one of the wealthier farmers in Wymondham.

Wymondham Priory was relatively small, initially for some twelve Benedictine monks, but grew in influence and wealth over the coming centuries.

This, too, was from time to time the cause of disputes which occasionally erupted into lawlessness, though the Vicar of Wymondham was appointed by the Abbot.

Kett's Rebellion was evidence of an undercurrent of ferment in sixteenth-century Wymondham.

Wymondham played a part in WWII that is very poorly documented, it was home to one of MI5's listening stations.

The type at Wymondham was a “ Spaced Loop ” design newly developed by the National Physical Laboratory.

The station at Wymondham was located at latitude = 52. 583333, longitude = 1. 121667, just North of Tuttles Lane and East of Melton Road.

The original building was destroyed in the Great Fire of Wymondham in 1615 ; the present building was rebuilt between 1617-18 at a cost of £ 25-7-0d with funds loaned by local man, Philip Cullyer.

On 11 April 1998 the sale of the route between Wymondham and Dereham to the Mid-Norfolk Railway Preservation Trust was completed, with the £ 100, 000 purchase price including Dereham station buildings and the of goods yard area.

It began at Wymondham on 8 July 1549 with a group of rebels destroying fences that had been put up by wealthy landowners.

The rebellion is remembered in the names of schools, streets, pubs and a walking route in the Norwich and Wymondham area, including the Robert Kett Junior School in Wymondham, Dussindale Primary School in Norwich, the Robert Kett pub in Wymondham and Kett's Tavern in Norwich, and in a folk band, Lewis Garland and Kett's Rebellion, and a beer, Kett's Rebellion, by Woodforde's Brewery in Norwich.

Wymondham is governed by a town council of 15 councillors.

Nationally, Wymondham is in the Mid Norfolk constituency and is therefore represented at Westminster by George Freeman.

A campaign group known as " Fight for Wymondham " has been formed by local residents to oppose this development, on the grounds that it will destroy Wymondham's character as a historic market town and potentially overwhelm local services and pose a threat to wildlife.

The Monarchist League had become virtually dormant by the mid-1980s, although Michael Wynne-Parker continued to engage in debates on behalf of the league, such as the one in 1982 at Wymondham College, Norfolk, when the motion, proposed by a Mr. Matehall, a member of the Communist Party, was " This House would Abolish the Monarchy ".

Walsingham used to be connected to the railway network by the Norwich via Fakenham, Dereham and Wymondham route, but this was axed during the Beeching era in the late 1960s, in stages from 1964 to 1969.

The railway between Dereham and Wymondham has been preserved, and is now operated as a tourist line by the Mid-Norfolk Railway Preservation Trust.

It is the southern section of the former Wymondham, Dereham, Fakenham and Wells-next-the-Sea line, opened by the Norfolk Railway in 1847 and closed to passengers in stages from 1964 to 1969 as part of the Beeching cuts.

The 1973 oil crisis led to a meeting being held at Dereham in 1974 by the Railway Development Society in order to petition for the restoration of passenger services between Wymondham and Fakenham.

The ownership of the line between Wymondham and Dereham was passed from British Railways Board ( Residuary ) Limited to the Mid-Norfolk Railway Preservation Trust by Statutory Instrument 1997 No. 2262 on 23 September 1997.

The first preservation-era train to operate between Dereham and Wymondham ran on 8 February 1998, when a works train hauled by 20069 and Ruston & Hornsby 0-4-0 ' County School ran as part of preparations for a March freight test train.

The nearest railway station is at Wymondham, which is south-west of the village and gives access to local services operated by East Midlands Trains and Greater Anglia on the Breckland Line on the Norwich to Peterborough and Cambridge lines.