South Wootton

South Wootton is about 2 miles north east of King’s Lynn town centre, adjacent to North Wootton and about 2 miles south of Castle Rising village. The older part of the village grew up around the village green and St Mary’s Church, though there has been a fair amount of new housing built since the 1960s connecting the village to the main town of King’s Lynn. The village has a large and attractive green and pond. The village is served by a local fish and chip shop and two pubs, The Swan in the centre of the village and The Farmers Arms, based at Knight’s Hill Hotel which is a little way from the centre of the village.

The name Wootton derives from the Old English phrase meaning ‘settlement in the woods’. The parish has a long history and appears to have been well established by the time of the Norman Conquest with its population, land ownership and productive resources detailed in the Domesday Book of 1086. St Mary’s Church, has late Saxon origins, although much of its fabric is medieval or Victorian. Around the village is evidence of the existence of medieval saltern mounds. These salterns would have been used by the inhabitants to extract salt from salt water or brine. This salt would then have been sold, as it constituted a valuable trade commodity during this period.