[4] Nayland and Wiston lie on the northern bank of the River Stour, which divides Essex and Suffolk.

The name Nayland means an island, and the village developed on the higher ground amidst the lower river flood plain.

It provided a good place for both a safe crossing of the river and an early manorial centre, probably a wooden castle.

The good result of this period of partial stagnation was that relative poverty prevented the beautiful old houses being knocked down to provide smart new homes and thus Nayland still possesses its Tudor and Stuart streets.

The early wills and the taxation lists which still exist show only farmers in Wiston, and it remained purely an agricultural parish until the end of the nineteenth century.

By the mid-1630s, the Stone family and others had departed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony as part of the wave of emigration that occurred during the Great Migration.

[5] In 1883 the new West Suffolk county council decided that the two strangely divided civil parishes should be joined as Nayland with Wissington, a process which Wiston resented but could not prevent.

The Nayland with Wissington Parish Council was created in 1894 as a result of the Local Government Act of that year.

In 1896 Dr Jane Walker bought two farms (both technically in Nayland) and founded the East Anglian Sanatorium.

It has a population of 938 and is situated in the Dedham Vale, an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the River Stour, the boundary between Suffolk and Essex.