1 Penny Norfolk - Smallburgh / Tunstead and Happing

Reverse

Central standing sheaf of wheat. Lettering around, beaded border

Script: Latin

Lettering: PAYABLE AT THE CORPORATION HOUSE ·

Edge

Central diagonal milling

Comment

Established in 1785, Tunstead and Happing was one of the Norfolk Hundred Incorporations formed by Local Acts of Parliament in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Its membership comprised all the parishes in the Tunstead and Happing Hundreds except for the parish of North Walsham. The Act For the better Relief and Employment of the Poor within the Hundreds of Tunstead and Happing, in the County of Norfolk (25 Geo.3. c.27.) established a board of guardians to administer poor relief including the operation of a "House of Industry" or workhouse. The Tunstead and Happing House of Industry was erected in 1785 at Smallburgh. It appears to have had a large H-shaped main building with a number of other smaller ancillary buildings. The Tunstead Incorporation was one of the workhouses to issue its own coinage in the form of workhouse tokens in the early 1800s when there was a national shortage of copper coins. The tokens could be spent locally to buy bread and other basic commodities. By 1924, the workhouse was closed and inmates were maintained at the Loddon and Clavering union workhouse at Heckingham. The main workhouse building has been demolished. The surviving structures at the east of the site have now been adapated for residential and agricultural use.

Interesting fact