History of Suffolk

The county of Suffolk (Sudfole, Suthfolc, meaning 'southern folk') was formed from the south part of the kingdom of East Anglia which had been settled by the Angles in the latter half of the 5th century.

Two large ecclesiastical liberties extended over more than half of the county; that of St Edmund included the hundreds of Risbridge, Thedwastre, Thingoe, Cosford, Lackford and Blackbourn in which the kings writ did not run, and St Aethelreda of Ely claimed a similar privilege in the hundreds of Carleford, Colneis, Plumesgate, Loes, Wilford and Thredling.

The geldable lands were divided into two quarter sessions divisions: Bungay (Hundreds of Blything, Mutford And Launditch and Wangford); and Ipswich (Bosmere and Claydon, Hartismere, Hoxne, Samford and Stow).

By the early nineteenth century these were being referred to simply as Beccles, Bury St Edmunds, Ipswich and Woodbridge Divisions.

In 1330 the county was raised to suppress the supporters of the Earl of Kent; and again in 1381 there was a serious rising of the peasantry chiefly in the neighbourhood of Bury St Edmunds.

[1] The county was constantly represented in parliament by two knights from 1290, until the Reform Bill of 1832 gave four members to Suffolk, at the same time disfranchising the boroughs of Dunwich, Orford and Aldeburgh.

Fishing fleets have left its ports to bring back cod and ling from Iceland and herring and mackerel from the North Sea.

[1] Of monastic remains the most important are those of the great Benedictine abbey of Bury St Edmunds; the college of Clare, originally a cell to Bec Abbey in Normandy and afterwards to St Peters Westminster, converted into a college of secular canons in the reign of Henry VI, still retaining much of its ancient architecture, and now used as a boarding-school; the Decorated gateway of the Augustinian order priory of Butley; and the remains of the Grey Friars monastery at Dunwich.

Another characteristic is the round towers, which are confined to East Anglia, but are considerably more numerous in Norfolk than in Suffolk, the principal being those of Little Saxham and Herringfleet, both good examples of Norman.

[1] Remains of old castles include part of the walls of Bungay, the ancient stronghold of the Bigods; the picturesque ruins of Mettingham, built by John de Norwich in the reign of Edward III; Wingfield, surrounded by a deep moat, with the turret walls and the drawbridge still existing; the splendid ruin of Framlingham, with high and massive walls, founded in the 6th century, but restored in the 12th; the outlines of the extensive fortress of Clare Castle, anciently the baronial residence of the Earls of Clare; and the fine Norman keep of Orford Castle, on an eminence overlooking the sea.

[1] The county has a number of Martello towers along its stretch of coastline, most of which were constructed during the first decade of the 19th century to guard against a potential invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte's France.