# Lollards Pit
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{{Short description|Where Lollards were burned at the stake for heresy, Norwich, England}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Coordinates|52.63180|1.30961|display=title}}
thumb|A plaque at Lollards Pit
'''Lollards Pit''' ({{Ordnance Survey coordinates|TG 2406 0892}}),[{{Cite web |title=Former execution site, Lollards Pit |url=https://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/record-details?MNF26322 |access-date=24 December 2025 |website=Norfolk Heritage Explorer}}] located just outside the [old boundary](/source/Norwich_city_walls) of the English city of [Norwich](/source/Norwich), England,[{{Citation |last=Mcclendon |first=Muriel C. |title=Women, Religious Dissent, and Urban Authority in Early Reformation Norwich |date=2008 |work=Violence, Politics, and Gender in Early Modern England |pages=125–146 |editor-last=Ward |editor-first=Joseph P. |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1057/9780230617018_6 |access-date=2025-12-22 |place=New York |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US |language=en |doi=10.1057/9780230617018_6 |isbn=978-1-349-37623-0|url-access=subscription }}] was the place where [Lollards](/source/Lollards), and later a number of [Marian martyrs](/source/Marian_martyrs), were burned at the stake for [heresy](/source/heresy). The condemned would be led across [Bishop Bridge](/source/Bishop_Bridge%2C_Norwich)—and thus outside of the nearby old city boundary—to be executed.[{{cite news |title=62: Lollards Pit, Norwich |url=https://www.edp24.co.uk/norfolk-life-2-1786/norfolk-history/62-lollards-pit-norwich-1-214172/ |work=Eastern Daily Press |issue=April 14, 2010 |publisher=Archant Community Media |date=2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170913021245/https://www.edp24.co.uk/norfolk-life-2-1786/norfolk-history/62-lollards-pit-norwich-1-214172/ |archive-date=13 September 2017 |language=en}}] As a result of a heresy trial that took place during [Thomas Bilney](/source/Thomas_Bilney)'s last preaching tour in Norfolk, Bilney was burned at Lollards Pit on 19 August 1531.[{{Cite journal |last=Donnelly |first=Colin M. |date=2023-01-02 |title=“Wherfore Amend Your Lyves Yff Yowe Wyll be Savyd”: The Soteriology of Thomas Bilney |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13574175.2023.2187934 |journal=Reformation |language=en |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=63–79 |doi=10.1080/13574175.2023.2187934 |issn=1357-4175}}]
[[File:Above,_the_martyrs_Cicely_Ormes_and_Margaret_Thurston_are_bu_Wellcome_V0041629.jpg|thumb|upright|An engraving in [Foxe's Book of Martyrs](/source/Foxe's_Book_of_Martyrs) depicting Cicely Ormes's execution at Lollards Pit (bottom)]]
The only two Norwich residents to be victims of the [Marian persecution](/source/Marian_persecution) – [Elizabeth Cooper](/source/Execution_of_Elizabeth_Cooper) and [Cicely Ormes](/source/Execution_of_Cicely_Ormes) – were burned at Lollards Pit.[{{Cite book |last=Houlbrooke |first=Ralph |title=Medieval Norwich |last2=McClendon |first2=Muriel C |date=2004 |publisher=[Hambledon and London](/source/Continuum_International_Publishing_Group) |isbn=978-1-85285-449-2 |editor-last=Rawcliffe |editor-first=Carole |location=London |pages=265 |chapter=The Reformation |editor-last2=Wilson |editor-first2=R. G.}}] In July 1557, two Protestants who had been accused of heresy were burned at the stake at Lollards Pit. These were Simon Miller of [King's Lynn](/source/King's_Lynn), who had arrived in Norwich and asked "where he might go to have the [communion](/source/Communion_under_both_kinds)," indicating a desire to attend a Protestant service, and Cooper, a resident of Norwich who had publicly rescinded her recantation of Protestantism in [St Andrew's Church](/source/St_Andrew's_Church%2C_Norwich).[{{Cite journal |last=McClendon |first=Muriel C. |date=2020-03-01 |title=Women, the Courts, and Urban Government in Early Reformation Norwich |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1353/emw.2020.0034 |journal=Early Modern Women|language=en |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=79–100 |doi=10.1353/emw.2020.0034 |issn=1933-0065|url-access=subscription }}] This led to her arrest at Lollards Pit by former city official and Catholic religious conservative John Corbet from [Sprowston](/source/Sprowston),