Beccles
Beccles maps (2 available)
Map of Suffolk
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
Personalised maps
Create an historic map centred directly on any postcode!
Beccles books (4 available)
- 1 photos on Beccles appear in 1 Frith books - View photos of Beccles
- Read extracts and see photos from these books on Beccles and Suffolk
Beccles memories
Read and share memories of Beccles and Suffolk inspired by Frith photos
Maurice Dunn (Alberta, Canada)
Playing Cowboys and Indians, down the steps, and along the cliff, after coming out of the old Picture House on a Saturday afternoon, in the Second World War years.
Contributed by First name Last name
Suffolk memories
Maurice Dunn (Alberta, Canada)
Playing Cowboys and Indians, down the steps, and along the cliff, after coming out of the old Picture House on a Saturday afternoon, in the Second World War years.
A memory of Beccles contributed by First name Last name
Wilfred Albert Parsk
I think my Grandfather was born on this street! He was called Wilfred Albert Parsk and fought in the Somme at about 16 years of age He never spoke much about the war but I know he lost a lot of his friends. He died in the 1980s but his memory is still cherished!
A memory of Wrentham contributed by roy parsk
Dene's Holiday Camp
My memories of Kessingland was us catching the coach from outside the bakers in Stotfold (my home town), travelling down via Newmarket, passing the site where a young gypsy boy had been killed many moons ago. We would then get to Lowestoft bus depot where a minibus would then take us into Kessingland. We would get to the pub on the top of the hill where you could look down and see the sea and an old boy would pick us up on his tractor and take us into the camp site.
What a wonderful time we had! There was the major out to greet all and the photo stand where pictures had been taken from the previous 2 weeks. We ...read more here
A memory of Kessingland contributed by Jacqueline Lunness
Extracts From Beccles & Suffolk books
St Mary’s, one of the largest
in Suffolk, is not a typical
Suffolk wool church, and has
an elegant lead spire. Inside is
the 600-year-old Angelus Bell,
one of the oldest in the country,
which is inscribed ‘Ave Maria
Gracia Plena Dominus Tecum’.
Perhaps the man who made the
bell had other things on his mind
when it came to putting in the
inscription, as he forgot to invert
the words laterally in the mould,
and they appear backwards on
the finished article!
An extract from from"Ispwich Pocket Album".
A 20th-century means of pro-
ducing power shares the banks
of the Orwell with vessels which
harness one of the oldest forms
of power. With shallow mudflats
along the banks of the tidal
Orwell estuary, moored sailing
boats end up on their keels twice
a day.
An extract from from"Ispwich Pocket Album".
We are looking east along Tavern
Street from Cornhill. On the left
is the red brick and stone Lloyds
Bank building, with its fretted
skyline, while to the right is the
neo-classical Post Office, built
in 1881.
An extract from from"Ispwich Pocket Album".
Wolsey fell from grace when he failed to support Henry VIII’s wish to
marry Anne Boleyn, and it was never completed. The brick gateway,
with its barely discernible royal cipher, is all that remains.
Just a few years later, Christchurch Mansion was built on the site of
the 12th century priory of the Holy Trinity. This Tudor country house
is now a museum, and its adjoining art gallery houses a fine collection
of paintings by Constable and Gainsborough. It is interesting to recall
that this marvellous house almost became a housing estate in the
late 19th century. The Cobbold brewing family bought the building
and then presented it to the town, thus enabling us still to enjoy this
monument to gracious living.
Tavern Street contains the Great White Horse Hotel, which, despite
its Georgian facade, is a timber-framed building dating back to the
16th century. Famous visitors have included Dickens (who wrote about
it in ‘Pickwick Papers’), George II in 1736, Louis XVIII of France in
1807, and Lord Nelson in 1800. Opposite the hotel stands a group of
buildings which appear to be Tudor, but are in fact reproductions, built
in the 1930s when such imitations were in vogue. Today, despite the
presence of the two major ports of Harwich and Felixstowe only ten
miles away at the mouth of the Orwell, Ipswich remains an important
industrial and commercial centre.
An extract from from"Ispwich Pocket Album".