History of All Saints
ALL SAINTS is built on the site of an earlier building, mentioned in Domesday, when it had 20 acres of land worth two shillings. It incorporates some of the originai flint in its re-built walls, and stands on a hill which used to overlook the River Yare, when water levels were higher than they are today. It can still be seen from the tower. The Romans rowed their galleys up river to Venta Icenorum (Now Caister-St-Edmunds) and many Roman coins have been found here. The Danes came in the late nineth century. Swain Forkbeard followed in 1004 on his way to sack Norwich, only four miles away, and many Postwickers probably sheltered within the safety of the Saxon walls. Later, in more peaceful times, square-rigged sailing ships, keels and wherries carried produce to and from the continental ports. From the 14th to 17th centuries, Norwich was a great provincial city, ranking with Bristol and York as secondary only to London in importance. Today there are still cargo ships, but many holiday-hire craft use the river, bringing visitors to explore the lakes, flooded from old peat diggings, known as the Norfolk Broads. Postwick remains a small village of about 400 people, with its 1400 acres now highly mechanised, mainly corn and sugar beet, with cattle on the marshes. Its farmworkers' cottages, interspersed with new buildings, house a working population which commutes to city jobs daily. Its name dates from Anglo-Saxon times,meaning Possa's Dairy Farm or dwelling place. (Old English 'wic' and Possa presumably an ancient inhabitant).