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Castle Rising was a parliamentary borough in Norfolk, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1558 until it was abolished by the Great Reform Act 1832. Its famous members of Parliament included the future Prime MinisterRobert Walpole and the diarist Samuel Pepys.
The borough extended over four parishes - Castle Rising, Roydon, North Wootton and South Wootton, in rural Norfolk to the north-east of King's Lynn. Castle Rising had once been a market town and seaport, but long before the passing of the Reform Act 1832 had declined to little more than a village. In 1831, the population of the borough was 888, and contained 169 houses.
Castle Rising was a burgage borough, meaning that the right to vote was vested in the owners of particular properties ("burgage tenements"), and that consequently the absolute right to nominate both the MPs could be bought and sold. Although it was possible for the landowner to create multiple voters by giving a reliable nominee notional ownership of the tenements – as was done in many other burgage boroughs – in Castle Rising the number of voters was kept as low as possible, and contested elections were almost unknown.
The Lord of the manor invariably owned a majority of the burgage tenements, though other influential local families were generally allowed to select the second MP. In the seventeenth century the Duke of Norfolk was the dominant interest: it was the Norfolk interest which enabled Samuel Pepys to gain the seat in 1673. At the start of the 18th century, the borough belonged to the Walpole family, and Sir Robert Walpole (Britain's first Prime Minister) began his parliamentary career here. Later in the century the Walpoles still nominated one MP, and the Earl of Suffolk the other.[1] By 1816 the patronage had passed to the Earl of Cholmondeley and Richard Howard.
Castle Rising was abolished as a constituency by the Reform Act 1832.
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