Assington
Assington maps (2 available)
Map of Suffolk
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
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Assington books (5 available)
Assington memories
Read and share memories of Assington and Suffolk inspired by Frith photos
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
Contributed by Rosemary Bennett
Suffolk memories
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
Stone Street, Boxford
William Balaam born in Stone Street, Boxford in 1870 or thereabouts. He was my Grandfather's stepfather. Grandad often talked of Boxford. It is believed that later in William Balaam's life he became a Mayor or Lord Mayor - however, we are not certain which town in the UK he became Mayor of - because he moved to London at some stage and married in West Ham, Essex. His father's name was Walter Balaam. Hope someone living in Boxford, Suffolk remembers the Balaam Family.
Annne
A memory of Boxford contributed by First name Last name
The Carpenters of Boxford
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 Assington & 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".
The old part of the town is mainly late Victorian, although it expanded rapidly after World War II as an overspill for London.
An extract from from"Suffolk Photographic Memories".