Geography Students Step into the Past – Learning about Dereham’s History

Our A Level geography students study Place as part of their course in which they compare two contrasting locations. One of their locations will be Tower Hamlets, the other, which has to be local, is Dereham and last week they had a visit from Jim and Joy Stebbings who came to talk about the history of the town and how it had changed over the years.

Joy was born in Dereham in St. Nicholas Street in 1945 and has lived here all her life. She recalled how the town used to be much busier due to the main route for all traffic being through the centre of Dereham. She also described how the Cattle Market used to come to what is now the Cherry Tree car park every week and how the Market Place has changed. Jim handed round old photographs of Dereham to help illustrate Joy’s story.

Jim and Joy described how Dereham also used to be a central hub for a number of national and international companies with factories being operated by Jentique [furniture], Hobbies and Metamec clocks, among others. However, over the years these industries have moved out of Dereham, the population has grown and it has become more of a ‘service’ town for Norwich with a struggling identity.

Jim completed their talk by explaining how the politics of a town like Dereham works with three levels of governance – Dereham Town Council, Breckland Council and Norfolk County Council.

The students made plenty of notes which they will be able to use for the module which focuses on people’s engagement with places, their experience of them and the qualities they ascribe to them. Students will understand how places are known and experienced, how their character is appreciated, the factors and processes which impact upon places and how they change and develop over time.