This book is about a place in my village which I love, which has fascinated me, and been part of my life, for as long as I can remember. As a little girl, I was told by my relatives about the Friary's holy well, a tunnel connecting the site to the nearby parish church, Oliver Cromwell's target-practice bombardment of the ruins from the high ground at Burnham Overy Town, and that my great-grandfather had looked after German soldiers at the POW camp on the site. I went to the primary school opposite the Friary, and my second-cousin grazed his beautiful Jersey cows on the precinct. My grandmother was a friend of Friary Cottage's previous owner and I have drunk water from the holy well many times.

Over the last few years I became more and more interested in knowing what happened to the site after the Carmelites left. It is here that I must thank Dr Helen Clarke, without whose interest in my research, guiding hand and steady encouragement, my findings and ideas would have remained as just notes. Thank you Helen, from the bottom of my heart, for all your wonderful and generous help.

I am very grateful to the many archivists who supplied the documents essential to this research, and to the following for their varied kinds of assistance: Prof. Mark Bailey; Andrea Beckham; Dr Giorgia Bottinelli and colleagues; Tony Bradstreet; Henry Chamberlain; Father Richard Copsey, O. Carm.; Kevin Crossley-Holland; Giles Emery; Alan Everitt; Jill Francis; Winston Franklin; Stephen Heywood; Dr Nick Holder; Jonathon Hooton; Fania Khan; Amanda Loose; Mark & Flic Lowe; Jonathon Mackman; Phil Mernick; Peter & Tony Minter; Dr Mark Samuel; Holly Smith; Dr Sheila Sweetinburgh; Irit Thorow; Drs Peter & Susanna Wade-Martins; Prof. Tom Williamson; and Dr Mark Winterbottom. I thank the residents of Burnham Norton who allowed access to their properties for surveying; plus those people who loaned me a copy of the Burnham Inclosure Award of 1826, and let me see the POW camp items.

I am very thankful to Dr Victor Morgan for his many useful comments on my manuscript, without which this book would have been the poorer. I also thank Victor for stimulating and fascinating email conversations about the Friary and wider aspects of Norfolk's history, all of which added much extra depth to this study.