File AH 17, 234X4 - Court Book for the manor of Swaffham 1534-8 and 1581-4, and for the Honour Court of Richmond 1580-92

The Honour Court meets several times a year, either at Swaffham or at Narford, with a meeting a year at Kingsmere [in the parish of Narford], and on two occasions in this period at Bawdeswell. Jurors or bailiffs appear irregularly from Cockley Cley, South Pickenham, North Pickenham, Foulden, and from Houghton, [East] Walton and [Ash]Wicken, these three places being treated as a single entity. [Source: NRO, AH 17]

The Earl of Richmond is named as lord in the Nomina Villarum of 1316.
According to White's Trade Directory (1845), the manor was anciently held by the Earl of Richmond. By the seventeenth century it was farmed by Sir Edward Coke of Charles I and later passed to the Barkham and Yallop families. Anthony Hamond, Esq., is given as lord of the manor in 1845 with Frederick Lane, Esq., of Lynn, as his steward.
Richard Horace Hamond, Esq., and Thomas Astley Horace Hamond, Esq., are given as lords of the manor in White's Trade Directory, 1883.