Downham West is a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The parish is 47.6 miles (76.6 km) west of Norwich, 16.3 miles (26.2 km) south-west of King’s Lynn and 96.2 miles (154.8 km) north of London. The nearest town is Downham Market, which is 2.5 miles (4.0 km), north east of the parish. The nearest railway station is at Downham Market for the Fen Line, which runs between King’s Lynn and Cambridge. The nearest airport is Norwich International Airport. The parish of Downham West, in the 2001 census, has a population of 285, rising marginally to 286 at the Census 2011. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk.
The parish of West Downham is a small Fenland parish in the west of the county of Norfolk. There is no village called West Downham within the parish, only a small Hamlet called Salter’s Lode. The hamlet is strung out along the A1122 road that hugs the drains and the course of the river Great Ouse, and consists of a few isolated farms standing out in the Fen. The name of Downham comes from the Old English meaning homestead on a hill, and West designation from the direction from near-by of Downham Market. Salter’s Lode derives its name from the Old English meaning ‘place where salt is kept’, and ‘watercourse or drainage channel’.
Salters Lode
The hamlet of Salters Lode is scattered around a lock at the end of the Well Creek navigation. Well Creek is a part of the Middle Level System and is on the route that forms a navigation link between the river Nene and river Great Ouse
History
During the period that the area was occupied by the Romans, Salters Lode became an important part of the salt industry on the Fen edge. A Roman road called the Fen Causeway, which ran through the Fens to Ermine Street at Peterborough, passed through the parish of Downham West on a strip of silt that rises above the level of the peat. With the proximity of this road, salt working became an important industry in this area and giving rise to the hamlets name. In 1993 the Norfolk Archaeological Unit discovered the site of a Roman salt works in West Downham dating to the 3rd and the 4th centuries. The excavations revealed a series of enclosures, structures and turbaries along with a ditched Roman field system and what was once a Roman canal. The archaeologist also found Roman coins and pottery. This evidence has led to the conclusion that there had been Roman settlement and industrial activity of a substantial level in the area.
Salters Lode Lock
The lock is managed and owned by the Inland Drainage Authority known as the Middle Level Commissioners. This Authority are responsible for the middle level network of drains, primarily for land Drainage in the area, but also as the Navigation Authority the navigation link between the two rivers. Salters Lode lock is part of the Denver complex which makes up the main gateway onto the Great Ouse navigation system from the tidal river. The Denver complex consists of a number of locks and sluices that are used for navigation access and management of water levels on the numerous waterways that characterise this part of Fenland.
Salters Lode smockmill
The Ordnance Survey map of 1836 has the position of Salters Lode smockmill located on land between what is now the A1122 road and were Well Creek and the River Great Ouse converge. This mill began life as a drainage mill built by Drainage Commissioners, but was converted into a corn mill around c.1850. The mill had 3 pairs of stones which were driven by one pair of single shuttered patent sails and one pair of common sails. The mill stood four storeys with the first being the base which was octagonal and constructed from brick. The main body of the mill was constructed of tarred vertical weatherboarding. At the top of the mill was a boat shaped cap. There was no fantail and a tailpole with steps on each side was used to turn the mill into the wind. Mill ceased working in 1924 and was still standing in a derelict state in 1949. Today there is no evidence of the mill to be seen.
Taken from Wikipedia
Accessibility Statement for Downham West Parish Council
This accessibility statement applies to the Downham West Parish Council website https://downhamwestparishcouncil.norfolkparishes.gov.uk/.
This website is run by Downham West Parish Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:
- change colours, contrast levels and fonts
- zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
- navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
- navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
- listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
How accessible this website is
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
- the text will not reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window
- you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
- most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- live video streams do not have captions
- some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
- you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
- there’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our ‘contact us’ page
Feedback and contact information
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:
- email the Parish Clerk, Sara Porter at [email protected]
- call the Parish Clerk, Sara Porter on 01366 502165
We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 10 working days.
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact the Parish Clerk.
Enforcement procedure
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
Downham West Parish Council is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.
We know that certain aspects of this website may prevent it from being fully accessible.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDFs and other documents
Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. By September 2020, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.
The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix some financial documents that are scanned images and cannot be read by a screen reader.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
Live video
We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared and adopted on 21st September 2020. It will be reviewed annually in May.
This website was last tested on 4th May 2022. The test was carried out by Downham West Parish Council using the https://wave.webaim.org/.
We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test.
