Brent Eleigh
Brent Eleigh maps (2 available)
Map of Suffolk
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
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Brent Eleigh books (5 available)
Brent Eleigh memories
Read and share memories of Brent Eleigh and Suffolk inspired by Frith photos
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
Contributed by Linda Upson
Suffolk memories
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
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
My Early Years
Hi, I guess it's one of those things you do as you get older, to take a walk down memory lane and to do a little bit of reminiscing. I was doing such a thing when I came across this photo of the village in Bildeston and saw the old house in the High Street that as a child and also in my early teens I lived in with my parents. When we lived there it was the local fish and chip shop. We also had a mobile shop that my dad used to take around to the outlying areas, to Watisham and Lavenham, I believe. Those were good days. There are many memories of my years in the primary school ...read more here
A memory of Bildeston contributed by Steve Clark
Extracts From Brent Eleigh & 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".