Admiral Lord Nelson's father, Edmund, was rector at All Saints Church and Nelson was baptised in the font, which remains in situ. There is plenty to see inside, including a battle ensign which was flown at the Battle of Jutland from HMS Indomitable, ledger stones for Nelson’s mother and father, and a bust of Nelson in the chancel. The lectern is made from timbers from HMS Victory. Nelson's brother Maurice and sister Susannah are buried in the churchyard.
Who were the Norfolk clergymen that history never forgot? How did they earn their rightful place in the annals of time? Let's meet these men, the author, 'the cycling parson', the diarist, the V.C. winner and the father of Norfolk's heroic admiral.
Horatio Nelson was born in the small, windswept Norfolk village of Burnham Thorpe on 29th September 1758. The North Sea lies only one and a half miles away, its lapping and pounding providing the soundtrack to Horatio's first twelve years of life. The Nelson family moved into the rectory in Burnham Thorpe in 1755 (the original building is no longer there). Horatio's father, Edmund, served as rector of the Burnhams, the group of villages taking their name from the river Burn. Nelson's mother, Catherine, was distantly related to Britain's first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, and Horatio was named after his godfather Horatio Walpole 1st Earl of Orford. They had eleven children, Horatio being the sixth, and eight of them survived infancy. Burnham Overy Harbour was the young Horatio's link to the wider world as it was from here that he was captivated by sights of ocean-going vessels and interacted with merchant seamen.
We and our partners use information collected through cookies and similar technologies to improve your experience on our site, analyse how you use it and for marketing purposes. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. In some cases, data obtained from cookies is shared with third parties for analytics or marketing reasons. You can exercise your right to opt-out of that sharing at any time by disabling cookies.
Privacy Policy
Manage Consent Preferences
Necessary
Always ON
These cookies and scripts are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, suchas setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block oralert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do notstore any personally identifiable information.
Analytics
These cookies and scripts allow us to count visits and traffic sources, so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies and scripts, we will not know when you have visited our site.