Walsham-Le-Willows
Walsham-Le-Willows photos (6 available)
Walsham-Le-Willows 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!
Walsham-Le-Willows books (4 available)
Walsham-Le-Willows memories
Read and share memories of Walsham-Le-Willows and Suffolk inspired by Frith photos
School in Walsham
I atended primary school in Walsham from 1953 to 1955, my father was stationed at Shepards Grove. We lived in West House about a mile out of town toward Bury St Edmonds. I enjoyed my time in school there. My wife and I made a trip back to places I lived at and we went through Walsham and I remembered most of the places.
I remember catching sticklebacks in the stream by the school. Going to the crash site of one of the jets from the base. It was just past where the school is now.
The school had pictures of the archery class, I was in one of those pictures and I wonder if any one might ...read more here
Contributed by Bernard Myer
Suffolk memories
School in Walsham
I atended primary school in Walsham from 1953 to 1955, my father was stationed at Shepards Grove. We lived in West House about a mile out of town toward Bury St Edmonds. I enjoyed my time in school there. My wife and I made a trip back to places I lived at and we went through Walsham and I remembered most of the places.
I remember catching sticklebacks in the stream by the school. Going to the crash site of one of the jets from the base. It was just past where the school is now.
The school had pictures of the archery class, I was in one of those pictures and I wonder if any one might ...read more here
A memory of Walsham-Le-Willows contributed by Bernard Myer
Rickinghall Chapel
Rickinghall Chapel
I came to a chapel on high ground,
The door of old English oak invited,
History was captured on the uneven white walls
And reflected on high stained windows,
And there was love
Such love,
She spoke of God as a family friend,
A guest for dinner, that would never attend,
Of times he would talk, but never speak,
Sometimes go, but never leave,
A friend that would always be there,
So clear the song,
The metaphor stayed,
And I
just sat there and prayed
And there was love,
Such love,
If this filled me with such emotion now, ...read more here
A memory of Rickinghall contributed by David Coe
My years living next to the butchers
My dad Rowland Cook took over Lasts butchers in 1985. I grew up in The Maltings which was attached to the shop and is the house on the right hand side of the photo with the big bay window from the age of 11 until I left home when I was 20. My parents ran the shop for 10 years before it closed and they moved on. The shop has since been demolished and a nasty modern house has replaced it which looks totally out of place in the street scene. Although I have many fond memories of my years in Botesdale I was glad to move away to the town.
A memory of Botesdale contributed by Kevin Cook
Extracts From Walsham-Le-Willows & 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".