Appleton Church, Sandringham, Norfolk.

A Norman village in ruins

This church lays in ruins on the Royal Sandringham Estate in rural Norfolk. You can see it from the road travelling from Hillington towards Sandringham, sitting atop a hill. Once a bustling medieval settlement, all that remains is the round towered church. It dates back to Norman times, but possibly even earlier Saxon times. The village of Appleton was gradually abandoned during medieval times. The land was bought in 1602 which suggests that the village had disappeared in the early 17th century. The village had a tunnel, a cell, a holy well, a moat, a double moated hall and a manor house as well as substantial farmland.
Today it has protected status of a scheduled monument. It was recently tidied and cleared after suffering years of being overgrown and the ruins now sit tidily on the hill overlooking West Newton.