[3] Around the year 1200 a windmill situated in the village was given to the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds by the previous owner Reginald of Groton and his wife Amicia.

This also covered the Peasants' Revolt which was exacerbated in the town by the election as his opponent, Edmund Bromfield, the papal nominee was supported by the townsfolk where as John was the Abbey's candidate.

The court found in favour of Steel awarding him £35 5s,[9] and ruled that no person has a right at common law to glean the harvest of a private field.

The subsequent debts and hardship that the case brought to the Houghtons forced them to twice mortgage then in 1796 auction their smallholding, which was one of the few remaining parts of the Culford estate parishes not yet under the control of the 1st Marquess Cornwallis.

Its purchase almost certainly enabled him to complete the enclosure process and to bring to fruition his family's long-term plans to make it a closed parish and classic estate village.

[11][12] In 1870–72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described the village as TIMWORTH, a parish in Thingoe district, Suffolk; 3 miles N of Bury-St. Edmunds r. station.