Old Newton memories
Here are memories of Old Newton and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Old Newton or a Old Newton photo.
Family Connection to The Shoulder of Mutton
My great great grandfather was Richard Thurston and I believe that his family lived at the pub about 1845.
They had several children Deborah,John Palmer,Mary Jane,Richard and William Mumford (thurston) His wife was Susannah.
John Palmer Thurston was my great grandfather.
My grandfather William John Thurston emigrated to Australia in 1910 with his wife Agnes Alice Thurston(nee Stillwell) from Sussex.
Memories of Suffolk
New Beginnings
We visited Gipping in 2003 to try to get a sense of the place our ancestors left in 1859 to start a new life in New Zealand. The flatness of the area was a significant contrast to the rugged coastal lands they farmed on their arrival in Little Akaloa, Canterbury. William Henry Elliss and his wife Sophia Rebecca Davey were resident in Gipping in 1858 when they married at the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Stowmarket. Their parents were Frederick and Caroline Elliss (nee Bass) and William and Eliza Davey (nee Fox), husbandmen, whose families had been in Gipping and Mendlesham for some generations. When William and Sophia left for NZ on the Mary Ann, bound for Canterbury, April 1859 they had been living in Haughley, William was a dealer, and they had a 7 month old son who died on the voyage out. Their parents stayed and died in Gipping, and Old Newton, and indeed Frederick and Caroline have a headstone erected in their memory in St Mary's Old Newton... Read more
Combs Fords Tragedy
In World War II I attended school in Stowmarket. My home was in the neighboring village of Needham down by the railway station, so I would catch the local bus at the Swan Public House and ride it to the Market Square in Stow. As the bus traveled north there were three other young children who joined the same bus, and on arrival we would walk to school together. (I was about eight years old at the time. One of the girls was about one year older as I remember)
After school we would stand in the Market Square to catch the bus back.
One day we stood waiting for our bus back home and it didn't come. No one seemed to know why. Eventually on our own initiative we decided to walk home to Needham. When we arrived at the edge of Combs Fords the road home was completely blocked. There had been a terrible... Read more
Childhood
Mendlesham Primary school was wonderful, it is still there but sadly, no longer a school, there is now a new Primary school. My favourite teacher was Miss File, she taught class'B'. Mr Hurrell was also a wonderful teacher. He had small glass files on the wall around the classroom with wild flowers in each one and he carefully had the names of the flowers written close by each one, so that we could learn them. Mr Hurrell's class was 'A' (this was the class before going on to High School, in Stowmarket, on Braybrooks school bus). Braybrook's buses were owned by Mr Braybrook, his secretary was Enid Lambert. Mr Braybrook converted the listed buildings in the Back Street, close to The Kings head pub. I think he wanted to do the same to the whole street, but sadly it didn't happen. I still hold a very dear place in my heart for Mendlesham. My childhood was very happy, I lived at no. 42, Front Street, before the houses were given... Read more
Melanie Gibson
I went to Elmswell primary and I would like to find a few friends from there, one in particular, Jessica.
Elmers Mill - Family History
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 19th century) construction than the recognised ancient (and still-standing) Drinkstone Mill. It's recognisably old design however would seem to counter this argument, and it's more likely I believe that the "inferior materials" found after it collpased may have been due to the need for successive and ongoing repairs, required... Read more
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