The North Norfolk village with the Fascinating History

In 1531 the clergy were required to designate the King as ‘Protector and only Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy of England’. This many of them did, with the reservation ‘so far as is allowed by the law of Christ’. Stephen Prowet was rector here when this ‘Submission of the Clergy’ was required, and it is likely that he willingly submitted, for he was the nominee of John Heydon who was a vigorous supporter of Henry VIII.

The Heydon family had about a century of greatness - the century of the Tudor monarchy - and when Sir William Heydon, who as Deputy Lieutenant of the County was put in charge of the "Home Guard" arrangements in case of a Spanish invasion in 1588, got into financial difficulties, he sold most of his estates. Part of those at Salthouse were bought by Sir Henry Sidney of Walsingham (cousin of Sir Philip who wrote the Arcadia), and they remained in the possession of Lady Sidney after his death. The remains of the Heydon estates were purchased at the time of the Restoration by a Mr Daniel Bridges, a woolen draper of St. Paul's Churchyard, on whose bankruptcy they passed to Dr Zurishaddai Lang. In 1754, Dr Lang's son, John Lang, left the estates of Baconsthorpe, Kelling and Salthouse to the rector of Baconsthorpe, the Rev Zurishaddai girdlestone, in whose family they remained for more than a century, and from 1782-1881 three generations of Girdlestones were rectors of Salthouse

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