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Ampton

Ampton maps (2 available)

Old map of Ampton

Ampton books (4 available)

Ampton memories

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Suffolk memories

Living in a Pub

In 1954 I was assigned as a second Lieutenant United States Weather Forecaster to RAF Sheperds Grove. After a few months living on the base I moved to a Pub in Botesdale, but unfortunately i do not remember the name. Several rooms were available. Please let me know the name. L. I. Miller
A memory of Botesdale contributed by Larry Miller

Elmers Mill - Family History

Woolpit, the Old Mill c1960

Hi there. Harry Elmer (who I understand was my GGrandad's brother) owned and ran this Mill into the 1940s. The Muggeridge Collection has some wonderful images of him replendent in the very gentlemanly working clothes of a miller of his ilk, and still working in his 80's.  Anecdotally Elmers Mill in Woolpit and Drinkstone Mill close by were dead ringers for each other, except they ran (i.e. their sails rotated) in the opposite direction to each other. This has recently been questioned on the Suffolk Mills site which has some memories posted about the structure of Elmers Woolpit Mill after it was tail-winded in 1963 and collapsed, saying it was built of "inferior materials" and therefore of much more recent (perhaps ...read more here
A memory of Woolpit contributed by Les Elmer

Swinging 60s

Kelsale, the Village c1955

Memories of dances at Leiston/Aldeburgh to the music of local band, The Rebels, with mates Steve Mew and Keith Tomblin. I worked at G.A. Hubbards as an aerial erector before moving to London, where I still live with my wife and 3 children. I remember the 8 Bells pub whose landlords were Jack & Sylvia Ford. My aunt & uncle Dot & George Scopes still live at Beaumont Cottages, my dad's name is Matt (Paddy) Mckenna.
A memory of Kelsale contributed by david mckenna

The Carpenters of Boxford

Boxford, Swan Street c1955

I would like to add a memory of Boxford, no, wonderful memories that I have of Boxford 65 years ago.
As a child of four, I was evacuated with my grandmother Mary Jane Farthing, nee Carpenter, to Boxford to stay with her parents, my great Grandmother Mary and Grandfather Charles Carpenter at Tinywent Corner - a little cottage with a well and a toilet way up the end of the garden.
The start of this adventure suddenly went haywire when the train stopped at Marks Tey, and we had to walk the rest of the way to Boxford.
Looking up Swan Street, the school I attended would have been behind me, and also the village hall. This was our meeting place ...read more here
A memory of Boxford contributed by Alan Lloyd

Extracts From Ampton & Suffolk books

Ipswich, Ancient House 1893

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".

Ipswich, Tavern Street 1896

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".

Ipswich, the Power Station c1955

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".

Hadleigh, St Mary's Church 1922

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".