Lavenham is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Babergh district, in the county of Suffolk, England.

[3] Lavenham prospered from the wool trade in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the town's blue broadcloth being an export of note.

The Guildhall of the catholic guild of Corpus Christi was built in 1529 and stands in the centre of the village overlooking the market square.

When visiting the town in 1487 [citation needed], Henry VII fined several Lavenham families for displaying too much wealth.

This sudden and dramatic change to the town's fortune is the principal reason for so many medieval and Tudor buildings remaining unmodified in Lavenham, as subsequent generations of citizens did not have the wealth required to rebuild in the latest styles.

During the reign of Henry VIII, Lavenham was the scene of serious resistance to Wolsey's 'Amicable Grant', a tax being raised in England to pay for war with France.

In 1525, 10,000 men from Lavenham and the surrounding villages took part in a serious uprising that threatened to spread to the nearby counties of Essex and Cambridgeshire.

There is no record of the town ever being directly involved in the conflict, although the townspeople did provide a troop of soldiers to aid in Parliament's Siege of Colchester in 1648.

The airfield, actually located a few miles away in Alpheton, has since been returned to arable farmland, though some evidence of its structures and buildings remains, including the control tower.

The southernmost valley contains a brook running between the pond at Lavenham Hall and the River Brett, though it was covered by a culvert 500 years ago, and Water Street built over the top.

[11] The village formerly had a railway station on the Long Melford–Bury St Edmunds branch line, which was opened on 9 August 1865.

[13] The line was an important goods route during the Second World War and was guarded by numerous Type 22 pillboxes, most of which are still visible in the surrounding farmland.

[27] In 1971, part of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s film The Canterbury Tales was recorded here, with the village representing medieval London.

[26] In 1980, some sequences in a TV advertisement for the launch of the new Austin Metro were filmed in the village, primarily on the market square, as well as in neighbouring Kersey.

[30] In 2010, under conditions of strict secrecy, scenes from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 were filmed there.

[31] The village's De Vere House represented sections of Godric's Hollow, as backgrounds, since the cast members did not actually visit Lavenham.

[34] Other productions that have used Lavenham as a location include Lowland Village a 1943 British Council release[35] and an episode of Treasure Hunt from February 1988.

The listing description indicates that 7–9 High Street was divided into two tenements before 1958, and that the orange building (originally "the south cross wing") was "very much altered in the C18 and C19" and was "restored with the timber-framing exposed".