In addition Coldham Hall is very close to the village and part of the grounds of the estate are located within the parish.

The present centre of the village is unlikely to have been the site of the original settlement as the basic requirement for a reliable supply of water would have precluded the area around the church.

[4] The earliest evidence of man in the parish can be identified in the now nearly ploughed out Warbanks which were certainly pre-Roman and may have been an earlier defence system.

The agreement required Herberd to provide for the widow of Alexander Hemning, the tenant of Lawshall Hall, and her two sons.

Names listed in the return that can still be recognised in today's place names (shown in parentheses) include Roberto Herbard (Herberts Farm), Alicia de Hanningfield (Hanningfield Green) and Johanne de Rownei (Rowney Farm).

[2] Queen Elizabeth I visited Henry Drury at Lawshall Hall during her "Royal Progress" tour in August 1578.

Thirty years later Elizabeth is named on the list of Papist recusants who had refused to attend Church of England services.

[2] Ambrose Rookwood of Coldham Hall was involved in the Catholic conspiracy to blow up King James I and his Parliament.

[2] A map was completed in 1611 for Sir Henry Lee, Lord of the Manor, which provides a detailed picture of the demesne and also the copyhold tenants' land and their houses.

Part of the cost was borne by the village charities including Corders, Stevens and the Town Land Trust.

[2] With reference to various trade directories for the second half of the nineteenth century, Lawshall appears a mainly self-sufficient community, but one that is starting to send goods and services outside of the village.

[2] The line opened for passengers in 1870, enabling some Lawshall residents to visit London for the first time in their lives.

In earlier times the 1611 Manorial Map shows that there was a mill site between Lawshall Hall and Harrow Green to the south of the road.

There was a recovery in farming from 1939 to 1945 and as a result of financial incentives to cultivate more land, the clearing of hedgerows and trees began.

[2] This fifteenth flint church is a Grade 1 Listed Building with stone dressings comprising a tall west tower, nave, aisles and a nineteenth-century chancel.

[2] The church was almost completely rebuilt in the mid-15th century on the profits of the cloth industry, and became a vast preaching house after the Reformation.

[7] During the prosperous high farming period of the nineteenth century the most important restoration for over 100 years was undertaken by William Butterfield in the Anglo-catholic style.

[7] The rector, Evan Baillie, spent £3,000 of his own money in rebuilding the chancel and putting in new windows before resigned his post and became a teacher at the Church of Our Lady and St Joseph, the Roman Catholic Chapel on Bury Road.

[8] Coldham Cottage itself dates from the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century and has a timber-frame, whitewashed and rendered, with pantile roof and brick central ridge and right end projecting stacks.

Until 1868 the priest officiated in the chapel at Coldham Hall but after the sale of the estate in that year a separate church was built utilising one unit of the existing house (kitchen and bedroom with removal of floor) and building on an extension.

[9] Following renovation work to the cottage, there is now a resident priest as well as facility to provide holiday accommodation for clergy wanting to take time off from their own parishes.

Evangelistic activities by outside bodies (including The Faith Mission) resulted in some conversions and from about 1968 people met in various houses for worship and bible study.

Eventually a legacy from the late Walter G Waspe of Lawshall Hall made financial provision for a new church which was opened for worship on 1 August 1970.

[2] The one remaining pub, The Swan Inn, is an eighteenth-century timber-framed and plastered building, previously with an L-shaped plan with a front extension at right angles to the road.

[8] Older children attend King Edward VI CEVC Upper School[14] in Bury St Edmunds.

For many years it was also the home ground of Coldham Hall Football Club for whom Brian Talbot played for as a youngster.

Open spaces within the parish include: Lawshall is served by a bus service operated by Mulleys Motorways which is sponsored by Suffolk County Council.

2 (2006) the Built-up area boundary is defined for Bury Road,[16] Lambs Lane[17] and The Street[18] with no sites allocated for new residential development.

Green Light Trust is an environmental and educational charity whose mission is to bring communities and landscapes to life through 'hands-on' learning and the growing of woodlands.

[57] Residents of Lawshall have included adventurer John Brereton, witch-hunter John Stearne,[59] failed Gunpowder Plotter Ambrose Rookwood, political adviser David Hart, film producer and director Matthew Vaughn, and model Claudia Schiffer.