Spurrell

Spurrell is a surname found in Norfolk, Wales and other parts of the United Kingdom, as well as in various countries around the world.

It has been suggested that the name of the Norfolk family is derived from the village of Sporle, near Swaffham. In 1349 a William de Sporle was admitted freeman of the city of Norwich and later sat on the committee that considered the creation of the office of Mayor of Norwich. Spurrells were resident in Norwich from the fifteenth century onwards, and in 1737 John Spurrell was elected mayor of the city.

Spurrells are recorded in Thurgarton, near Cromer, from the early 1500s and may have settled there from Norwich. A William Sporrell is listed on the Subsidy Roll in 1522, and the Thurgarton parish records show several generations of the family from 1539 onwards. The Spurrell family (the change in spelling from Sporrell to Spurrell occurred in the mid-16th century) owned several hundred acres of land in Thurgarton, Bessingham, Sustead, Gresham and Erpingham.

In 1733 William Spurrell, the first of four generations named William to serve as Chief Constable of North Erpingham hundred, rebuilt Thurgarton House in the Georgian style. A Victorian wing and several brick barns were built in the nineteenth century. The house remained in the Spurrell family until 2014.

In 1894 John Thomas Spurrell, the younger son of Richard James Spurrell of Thurgarton House, inherited several thousand acres in Horsham St Faith and Newton St Faith, near Norwich, from Barbara, Countess von Rechberg (daughter of Thomas Jones, 6th Viscount Ranelagh, and the estranged wife of the Austrian statesman Count Johann Bernhard von Rechberg und Rothenlöwen). In the 1930s part of the estate was requisitioned for the construction of RAF Horsham St Faith, which in 1963 became Norwich International Airport.

...
Wikipedia