BEESTON RACECOURSE

The Norfolk village of Beeston has a racecourse farm implying that they once had a racecourse. However, although precious few details are known about the meeting, Clare Buxton did mention it in her dissertation, an extract from it is shown below

I am grateful to Clare Buxton for providing details about Beeston Races, shown below, from her excellent dissertation, ‘18th and early 19th Century Race Grounds in Norfolk and Suffolk’ completed in September 2005.
Faden recorded another race-ground rather more obscure than Blickling, Holt or Wisbech. Deep in the countryside of central Norfolk, he marked a field at Beeston-next-Mileham, a village half-way between East Dereham and Castle Acre. It shows on the map as a settlement clustered around a straggling piece of common, between Wendling Farm in the east and St. Mary's Church to the west. The race-ground lies south of the eastern edge of this common. Bryant, on the other hand,does not cover this area in great detail, his map shows little in Beeston bar the Rectory and the church. As far as can be established, none of the county directories and histories mention this race-ground. However, the reference persisted until well into the nineteenth century. The Tithe Apportionment of Beeston-next-Mileham, dated 30th September 1842, refers to an area of land as the Race-Ground, about sixteen acres under arable cultivation and twenty acres of pasture. The Reverend John Nelson, who died on 9th November 1865, held around seven acres of glebe land, tenanted by Noah Claxton, which was divided up into three parcels known respectively as : the Further Race Ground; Second Race Ground; and Part of Race Ground. The Tithe Schedule totalled 2,039 acres of which about fifty acres was designated as heath, quite distinct from the thirty-six acres of land (arable and pasture) whose divisions were named by being described as parts of the race ground. Race Farm is listed in Kelly's Directory of 1929; and the name continues to this day. The correspondence of the Hamond family, who lived not far away at Swaffham and were keen supporters of both racing and coursing, makes no mention of Beeston race-ground.

Course today; No evidence of the former course remains.
If anyone can provide further details about this racecourse then please contact johnwslusar@gmail.com
If you have photos, postcards, racecards. badges, newspaper cuttings or book references about the old course, or can provide a photo of how the ground on which the old racecourse stood looks today, then email johnslusar@fsmail.net

Much of the information about this course has been found using internet research and is in the public domain. However, useful research sources have been:-

London Illustrated News

Racing Illustrated 1895-1899

The Sporting & Dramatic Illustrated

Northern Turf History Volumes 1-4 by J.Fairfax-Blakeborough

The Sporting Magazine

A Long Time Gone by Chris Pitt first published in 1996 ISBN 0 900599 89 8

Racing Calendars which were first published in 1727