Blaxhall
Blaxhall maps (2 available)
Map of Suffolk
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
Personalised maps
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Blaxhall books (4 available)
Blaxhall memories
Read and share memories of Blaxhall and Suffolk inspired by Frith photos
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Suffolk memories
International Stores
A previous shared memory recalling International Stores reminds me that my father worked there, as a roundsman. He would cycle every day from Leiston, then do the equivalent all over again in Saxmundham, several times a day as he delivered groceries.
He had his own band - he played piano - and met my mother, Joan Spatchet, at a dance in the Market Hall. They married in 1937, my sister Ann was born a year later and I arrived on February 23rd 1944 - just a few weeks after my father was killed on a bombing raid over Germany on January 1/2nd, when his plane was attacked by a night fighter. Two years ago we travelled to Germany from our ...read more here
A memory of Saxmundham contributed by John Fisher
blacksmiths
Apparently my Gr Grandfather John Freeman owned a blacksmith shop that was situated just on the left hand side of the road here at the beginning of the 20th century. He also made the 'fences' that protected the bases of many of the trees on the Hurts Hall estate. I've never been able to find any written infromation about him or the 'smithy' though.
A memory of Saxmundham contributed by carol allen
THE WOOD AND CHURCH HILL
LIKE JOHN FISHER SAID WE PLAYED IN THE WOODS AND EXPLORED ALL THE SURROUNDING FARMLAND, SCARED OF BEING CAUGHT BY SQUIRE LONG AND LATER MISS ALDOUS. AS FOR THE OLD WELL UP CHURCH HILL, I CAN REMEMBER DROPPING ROCKS DOWN IT WHEN THERE WAS A LOUD BANG AND A FLASH WHICH MADE US DISAPPEAR QUICKLY FROM THE SCENE. I ALWAYS WONDERED WHAT IT HAD BEEN. CERTAINLY TAKES YOU BACK READING THESE MEMORIES.
A memory of Saxmundham contributed by CHRIS CHILVERS
We played in the woods
The woods behind South Entrance were our playground. I lived at 5 South Entrance and knew every nook and cranny, and in the spring I knew where every nest was.
Names that come to mind are our neighbours Julian and Christopher Chilvers,
Doreen, Christine Mattinson (or Matteson) then David Nettleingham, Cookie, Richard Green, Colin Thomas. Our biggest secret was the old well, through the far end of the woods, and up Church HIll. It had been covered with a concrete cap, but we chipped away and made a hole, lighting paper and throwing it down to get a good look. It contained dumped wartime explosives, probably incendiaries, which we threw bricks at. I got my eyebrows badly singed when something went ...read more here
A memory of Saxmundham contributed by John Fisher
Extracts From Blaxhall & 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".