Fritton (near Great Yarmouth)


Fritton is a village in the English county of Norfolk, situated some south-west of the town of Great Yarmouth and north-west of the Suffolk town of Lowestoft. It should not be confused with the village of the same name near Morning Thorpe in Norfolk.
Today the village forms part of the civil parish of Fritton and St. Olaves, which in turn is within the district of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. However prior to the Local Government Act 1972, the village was within Lothingland Rural District in Suffolk.

History

Caldecott Hall, now a hotel rebuilt in the Victorian era, was a substantial manor house as early as the fifteenth century. It belonged to Sir John Fastolf, the original of Shakespeare's Falstaff. The Paston Letters record the bitter struggle between the Paston and Debenham families over its inheritance.
During World War 2, Fritton Lake in Norfolk was requisitioned by the 79th Armoured Division
for the secret training tank crews of DD tanks, specially amphibious modified tanks, which would play a significant role in the D Day Landings of 6 June 1944. Between the spring of 1943 and the summer of 1945, over 2000 men from a number of British, Canadian and American regiments / battalions came to Fritton Lake to be trained in the operation of
these tanks.