Norfolk was tenant-in-chief. There was also a Domesday holding of 69 acres, with 2 acres of meadow and wood for 20 hogs, held by a freeman under Earl Alan, who with the king had the soke of that land. William Bigod, son of Roger, granted Edric of Thorpe together with all the lands, men and services in Thorp and Dunwich to the Priory of the Virgin Mary and St Andrew in Thetford, which his father had founded. However the manor was vested in Leiston Abbey, and at its dissolution in 1536 was granted by the Crown to Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. A medieval stone chapel stood at Thorpe, which fell into disuse after the Reformation, but which formed a chapelry attached to the advowson and rectory of Aldringham church during the 17th century. The advowson of Aldringham had been granted first to Butley Priory, and then transferred to Leiston Abbey, by Ranulf de Glanvill, founder of those houses, during the later 12th century. Benefit of wrecks Thorpe is mentioned in the 12th-century foundation endowments of Snape Priory. William Martel, Albreda his wife, and Geoffrey Martel, their son and heir, granted their manors of Snape and Aldeburgh, and that of Friston, to the abbot and monastery of St John at Colchester, so that they should establish a prior and monks as a cell at Snape. With the manor of Snape was granted the benefit of wrecks from the sea, from Thorpe to Orford Ness. References Civil parishes in Suffolk