The village of Little Snoring can be found alongside the A148 which runs from King's Lynn to Cromer in the north of the county of Norfolk. The village is about twenty-five miles to the north of Norwich and lies a mile and a half away from its near-neighbour of Great Snoring, although contrary to expectations Little Snoring is actually a good deal larger than its sister village. In both cases the name has nothing to do with the propensity of its inhabitants to suffer from obstructive sleep apnoea, but is rather derived from a combination of the Old English personal name 'Snear 'and the word 'ingas' for 'people of', and therefore means something like 'the settlement of Snear's people'. It appears in the Domesday Book as Snarringes, which later became Snoring, being divided at some point later into its greater and lesser manifestations.
Little Snoring itself is a substantial working village which has a decent pub (the Green Man Inn), some shops, and even its own Little Snoring Primary School. It had a population of 272 at the time of the 2001 Census which has since risen to over 280 by 2004, although as the population was previously recorded as 293 in 1845 and 276 in 1881, it is clear that not a great deal has happened in the village over the past century and a half.
The parish church of Little Snoring is dedicated to Saint Andrew and is remarkable for the fact that its tower is completely separate from the rest of the church. The round tower is pre-Conquest and was probably built as a lookout to warn of the approach of Viking raiders who were fairly prevalent along the east coast for many years. It then appears that the original church to which it was attached was demolished and a new Norman church erected during the twelfth century which, subject to usual refurbishments and restorations is what survives to this day.
The village was briefly a hive of activity during World War II when a military airfield was established nearby from which Lancasters, Beaufighters, but mainly Mosquitos flew between the years 1942 and 1945. Although the village continues to celebrate this connection by featuring an aeroplane rudder on the official Little Snoring Village Sign, the Royal Air Force ceased to use the airfield during the 1950s and it is now a civilian airfield serving light aircraft, whilst the former aircraft hangers are used for warehousing and also house a company which recycles toner cartridges.
SOURCES
- John Ayto and Ian Crofton, Brewer's Britain and Ireland (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2005)
- Little Snoring airfield
http://www.controltowers.co.uk/L/Little_Snoring.htm
- St Andrew, Little Snoring
http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/littlesnoring/littlesnoring.htm
- Ann and John Gurney, The Church of St. Andrews, Little Snoring
http://www.the-snorings.co.uk/info/LSchurch.html
- Little Snoring Airfield
http://www.mcaully.flyer.co.uk/page3.html
- Norfolk: Little Snoring
http://www.origins.org.uk/genuki/NFK/places/s/snoring_little/