Great Waldingfield
Great Waldingfield 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!
Great Waldingfield books (4 available)
Great Waldingfield memories
Read and share memories of Great Waldingfield and Suffolk inspired by Frith photos
Memories of Three Happy Years
I, Bill Rodgers was in the United States Air Force stationed at RAF Wethersfield. My wife Phyllis, son Michael and I lived on the Heath Estates, Great Waldingfield from 1962 to 1965. Michael, age 5 attended the Folly Road Primary School in Great Waldingfield. Our daughter Michelle was born in the Sudbury hospital in 1964. We had a wonderful time in Great Waldingfield, with wonderful neighbors. We visit England at least once a year. My wife is from Leicester, England whom I married in 1959.
Two years ago we attended our friend's (old neighgbor) 50th wedding anniversary in Red Lodge, England. We frequently visit with our friends durning our trips to England. ...read more here
Contributed by Bill Rodgers
Suffolk memories
Memories of Three Happy Years
I, Bill Rodgers was in the United States Air Force stationed at RAF Wethersfield. My wife Phyllis, son Michael and I lived on the Heath Estates, Great Waldingfield from 1962 to 1965. Michael, age 5 attended the Folly Road Primary School in Great Waldingfield. Our daughter Michelle was born in the Sudbury hospital in 1964. We had a wonderful time in Great Waldingfield, with wonderful neighbors. We visit England at least once a year. My wife is from Leicester, England whom I married in 1959.
Two years ago we attended our friend's (old neighgbor) 50th wedding anniversary in Red Lodge, England. We frequently visit with our friends durning our trips to England. ...read more here
A memory of Great Waldingfield contributed by Bill Rodgers
Family
My maiden name is GAME and I've just started researching that side of my family tree, unfortunately due to the fact my dad didn't know too much about his dad's side of the family I had to send away for my Grandad's birth certificate. On receiving the certificate it placed his birth in Brent Eleigh and I was then away. I discovered my family went back to about 1750 in this delightful village, it could go back further but I haven't yet looked.
I visited Brent Eleigh and St Mary's church and what a lovely place tucked away in Suffolk, the church is set in a small area surrounded by trees, it was so peaceful. I found my GG Uncle and ...read more here
A memory of Brent Eleigh contributed by Linda Upson
Society Farm
In 2001 my husband Derek and I visited Assington. We had been researching Derek's family history, and had discovered that his great-great-grandfather John Crisell was the bailiff, in the middle of the 19th century,at Society Farm, Assington.
We were unable to find the farm, but called at a farm shop in the middle of the village, and were told that this had been Society Farm, but had changed its name to Willow Tree Farm. The reason it had been called Society Farm was that Sir John Gurdon, of Assington Hall, had set up a co-operative agricultural experiment on the farm in the 1830s in an effort to help the villagers. Some years later, John Crisell was appointed bailiff, and had lived ...read more here
A memory of Assington contributed by Rosemary Bennett
Extracts From Great Waldingfield & 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".