| Elveden Hall lies just over the border in Suffolk
and close to the busy A11 which passes through the
middle of the village. The village is a familiar
landmark for those entering and leaving Norfolk as it is
a notorious bottleneck. This is the last stretch of the
A11 awaiting the dual carriageway treatment.
Originally a Georgian country house, it was transformed
by Prince Duleep Singh - the last Maharajah of Punjab.
The Maharajah, who was exiled from India, bought the
house in 1863 and commissioned John Norton to redesign
it in the style of Indian palaces such as those at
Lahore or Delhi. Duleep Singh was a noted sportsman and
crack shot and handed over the Koh-I-Noor diamond to
Queen Victoria.
Duleep Singh died in Paris in 1893 but his body was
brought back to Elveden and he is buried in the
churchyard.
He was the first Sikh to settle in Britain
and today many Sikhs make a pilgrimage to Elveden or to
visit his statue in nearby
Thetford. Thetford has also recently acquired
another piece of Anglo-Sikh heritage in the form of a
gravestone belonging to Duleep Singh's mother - Maharani
Jindan Kaur. The stone was discovered in the catacombs
of Kensal Green Dissenter's Chapel in London and has
been given to the Ancient House Museum in the town.
Maharani Jindan Kaur - known as the 'Messalina of
Punjab' - was exiled to England in 1849 when the English
annexed the region. She died in Kensington in 1863 and
was originally interred at Kensal Green until her son
arranged to have her body taken back to Bombay - where
it was cremated in 1864.
Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, the Maharani's grandson,
gave the Tudor townhouse (which now houses the museum)
to the people of Thetford in the 1920s. Frederick
purchased Blo' Norton Hall
in 1906 and lived there for the last 20 years of his
life. He is buried in Blo' Norton churchyard and there
is a memorial to him inside the church.
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Supported
by Norfolk Tourism