end and the village hall on the actual green at the east end. To the west of Chestnut Walk is another lane passing through the hamlet of St John's with a second ruined church, and in between the two is the deer park of Beachamwell Hall. The mansion was rebuilt in 1906 after a fire, but the original 18th-century stables, ice-house and ha-ha survive. To the east of the village is the tiny hamlet of Shingham, which used to be a separate parish and which retains its own church building, St Botolph's. The hamlet of Drymere is strung along the road to Swaffham. It was created for forestry workers when the Warren was afforested. According to the 2011 census the village had a population then of 339, including Shingham. History Early days The parish has been the source of a rich collection of archaeological finds, mostly obtained by fieldwalking or metal-detecting. The light, easily worked soil was attractive to Neolithic farmers, and large numbers of worked flints have been recovered. A possible cursus exists just south-west of the All Saints church ruin. A small menhir of uncertain date, called the Cowell Stone, marks the meeting point of the parishes of Beachamwell, Swaffham and Narborough. It has been moved a short distance from its original location, on a track leading north of the A1122 to Narford, and is no longer upright. Numbers of Bronze Age artifacts have also been found, notably a copper alloy hammer near Lodge Farm. There are at least nine round barrows in the parish, and two of these are noted on the Ordnance Survey: South-east of Shingham, and at Hangour Hill on the A1122. The latter location had at least one other barrow, and could have been a cemetery. Iron Age pottery has been found in fieldwalking, also a possible chariot linchpin near the Roman road mentioned below. Romans The A1122 to the east of Fincham follows the course of a Roman road that connected the Fen Causeway with Venta Icenorum (the present Caistor St Edmund), and ran through Beachamwell Warren. Roman-era finds have been rich, but no remains of Roman buildings have been identified. A trove of four pewter dishes were found during ploughing at Shingham Farm to the west of Shingham Wood in 1968, and a very unusual T-shaped brooch decorated with red enamel in the same general area in 1995. Two coin hoards were