Welcome to Soddenham, a typical Norfolk village. Through this web site we seek to tell the story of the village from its earliest days right up to now, through parish records, oral histories and photographic and written archives. If you have a connection with Soddenham and have a contribution to make please get in touch with Les Taret, Chairman of the Soddenham Historical Society and Curry Club.
PLEASE NOTE that a whist a great deal of photogaphy on this site has been created by myself, a number of these images are originally sourced from basic internet searches. I believe that I have modified and developed these images so that they are significantly different from the originals and can be considered as ‘fair use’ under copyright law. If your opinion differs and you are the copyright holders for any image included on this site, please contact me. Where others have kindly submitted images expressly for inclusion here, appropriate credit will be given.
Everything Mr.Pickard says is written by Mr. Pickard himself, who has been a tremendous supporter of Soddenham since the start.
© 2016 Christopher Skinner/Lestaret
This is Soddenham 
Hi Les,
I’m so pleased to have stumbled upon your site.
It is clear that a lot of time and effort has been put into the content you have bought back such fond memories of the village.
I lived in Soddenham until the age of 11 but In 1977 my family moved to Fakenham. Many of my happiest memories from my childhood are from the times in Soddenham.
I enjoyed seeing the maps and actually still have an old OS map myself. I got it when I was in the cub scouts when I did my map reading badge.
Me and my friends used to love the summer months when we would head into Lichen Orchard to play hide and seek. I can remember being chased out a few times by the angry owner. Not sure what his name was but we called him the Lichen Monster and there were lots of stories about children who were caught by him that were never seen again. One rumour was that they were turned into lichen. I’m sure they weren’t true but when you are 10 years old it added to the sense of adventure.
I used to play cricketball for the schools junior team and my favourite position was Piper. The school pitch wasn’t very level but we used that to our advantage.
Seeing the photographs of the pub reminded me how sometimes my dad would take us to the pub early evening and sit us outside with a bag of crisps and a bottle of pop with a bendy straw. It’s great how photographs can stir such vivid memories.
When work commitments allow I must try to make it over to Soddenham to relive some of my childhood memories. Perhaps there are families still there that I grew up with.
I notice the pub is run by Bernie Tooley. I went to school in the village with Toby Tooley and he had a younger brother who I think was called Bernie. I can’t remember his name because we always called him Bogey Nose. Could he be from the same family?
Thats enough of my reminiscing but I will look forward to following your website.
Best wishes
Mr Pickard
It is very good to hear from you Mr. Pickard, and I am pleased to have stirred your memories of the motherland! And yes, you’re right, Toby is the elder brother of Bernie! You’d hardly recognise him today though, and I rather doubt you’d call him bogey nose either, as he grew up to be the gargantuan fellow he is now know as. He has worked for the Murrows for quite some time, sometimes at the mill and sometimes in any one of Murrows other ‘ventures’ around the village, and still is employed by the family trust to maintain the millhouse, grounds and orchard. Was always a good Thrasher for the Mules too until his he had his spleen bypass. His son James hopes to make the team soon, and hopes to recapture the glory days for his dad. By the way, the school field is still as bad as it ever was!
I too was told the stories of the lichen monster – many sleepless nights that one caused! My own children never really bought into it though. I suppose they are more scared of being ‘trolled’ on Facebook these days, eh?
Well, if you are ever down this way, let me know and I’ll buy you a bottle of brew to celebrate your homecoming!
Keep in touch,
Les