Rectors of Caston
(The following abridged details are published here with kind permission of John Barnes and come from his books "A History of Caston" published 1974). Details of Rectors appointed after 1974 have been taken from the wall tablet in the chancel.
RECTORS OF CASTON
A list of Rectors, compiled from a number of sources, is appended.
| 1305 Thomas Thorneye | 1598 Christopher Sutton |
| 1333 John de Lenne | 1618 John Sutton |
| 1338 Sir Soloman de Swaffham | 1634 John Beckham |
| 1374 John Barbour | 1679 Samuel Gray |
| 1377 John de Burewell | 1681 Charles Seppens |
| 1391 John Sad | 1691 John Dawney |
| 1421 Thomas Peck | 1705 James Smith |
| 1453 Edward Elys | 1720 George Shuckburgh |
| ? Edmund Morle | 1733 John Lloyd |
| 1473 Ambrose Ede | 1735 Henry Burgh |
| 1502 William Peper | 1767 John Twells |
| 1504 John Treman | 1803 Benjamin Barker (the Younger) |
| 1510 John Crew | 1850 Walter John Partridge |
| 1531 John Weymer | 1886 Walter Henry Partridge |
| 1533 John Beckham | 1920 Walter Ernest Clarke Partridge |
| 1540 John Winter | 1942 Herbert Ernest King |
| 1541 Robert Blundeston | 1970 Paul Irving Allton |
| 1557 William Day | 1975 Paul Wilfred Dorman |
| 1558 Richard Holmes | 1981 John Cooke |
| 1558 Gregory Madys | 1991 Hedley Richardson |
| 1559 John Blacklock | 2003 John Clark |
| 1572 Richard Browne | 2005 Bob Nichols |
| 1575 Edmund Gelson | 2024 Vanessa Layfield |
| 1579 William Laurence | |
| 1585 William Buck |
John Barbour is buried in the chancel, possibly in one of the tombs with missing brasses, while John Sad is buried in the churchyard by Sir John de Caston's tomb under the north chancel wall.
The first recorded patron was Robert de Caston in 1218, and the patronage remained in the de Caston family until 1391. In 1421 it was in the hands of Sir John Carbonell, Knight, but from 1453 to 1679 it was mainly with the Berney family, at first of Caston and later of Reedham. By 1803 it had been acquired by Benjamin Barker Esquire, who appointed his son to the living, and it then passed to Henry Dover who left it in his will to the Rector, the Rev. W. J. Partridge. In turn he appointed his son as Rector, and in due course the son also acquired the patronage, leaving it at his death to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, from whom the Bishop of Norwich acquired it in 1966.
ADMINISTRATION
For purposes of administration and government the country is divided into dioceses which are in turn subdivided into archdeaconries and then deaneries. Caston is in the Breckland Deanery of the Archdeaconry of Lynn in the Diocese of Norwich, the Breckland Deanery having been formed in 1970 by an amalgamation of the former Swaffham and Breccles Deaneries. Within the deanery Caston is now a part of the Breckles Group of Parishes. inaugurated by the Bishop of Lynn on 30th April 1972.