Lavenham to Long Melford, Suffolk Circular walk. 26th October 2020

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On Monday the 26th October 2020 I drove for an hour and a quarter and arrived in Lavenham and parked up for free on Church Street on the roadside. I pulled on my walking boots and threw my rucksack on and set off down Church Street.

Lavenham is a village in the county of Suffolk, England. It is noted for its Guildhall, Little Hall, 15th-century church, half-timbered medieval cottages and circular walks. In the medieval period it was among the twenty wealthiest settlements in England. Today, it is a popular day-trip destination for people from across the country along with another historic wool town in the area, Long Melford.

Before the Norman conquest, the manor of Lavenham had been held by the thegn Ulwin or Wulwine. In 1086 the estate was in the possession of Aubrey de Vere I, ancestor of the Earls of Oxford. He had already had a vineyard planted there. The Vere family continued to hold the estate until 1604, when it was sold to Sir Thomas Skinner.

Lavenham prospered from the wool trade in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the town's blue broadcloth being an export of note. By the late 15th century, the town was among the richest in the British Isles, paying more in taxation than considerably larger towns such as York and Lincoln. Several merchant families emerged, the most successful of which was the Spring family.

The town's prosperity at this time can be seen in the lavishly constructed wool church of St Peter and St Paul, which stands on a hill at the top end of the main high street. The church, completed in 1525, is excessively large for the size of the village and with a tower standing 141 ft (43 m) high it lays claim to being the highest village church tower in Britain. Other buildings also demonstrate the town's medieval wealth. Lavenham Wool Hall was completed in 1464.

I turn right down Water Street, and pass some picture perfect buildings.

On the corner of Water Street and Lady Street is the Lavenham Wool Hall.

Lavenham Wool Hall, also known as the Swan Hotel, is a timber framed building on Lady Street in Lavenham. Dating from the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, it has been protected since 1958 as a listed building (grade I).

The building started life as a guildhall. It belonged to the Guild of the Blessed Virgin, one of the four medieval guilds in Lavenham. It was converted into a Wool Hall in the late seventeenth century.

It was restored by Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll around 1911 who then transferred it to Mrs Culver and it became the Railway Women's Convalescent Home. After the home closed, it was acquired by Trust Houses and incorporated into the Swan Hotel in 1963.

Number Ten,Lady Street is found in a beautiful 15th Century House at the corner of Water and Lady Street, whether you want a glass of wine and a cheese board in front of the fire in the bar.

I walk up Lady Street towards the Guildhall.

I reach the Guildhall.

By the late 14th century, Lavenham was at the centre of the East Anglian woollen cloth trade. Its specialised production of woad-dyed broadcloth, known as Lavenham Blue, had made it one of the richest towns in England. This wealth was the catalyst for four guilds being established in the town by the local merchant families: the most important of these was the Guild of Corpus Christi formed in 1529. The guild established their guildhall at around that time; the design made extensive use of jettied timber framing and featured a gabled porch projecting from the centre of the building on the north-west elevation.

With the decline of the woollen cloth trade and Lavenham's prosperity, the guildhall's role changed. By 1689, the guildhall was in use as a bridewell, and from 1787 it was used as a workhouse. Prison cells and mortuary buildings were established in the area behind the guildhall in 1833. In 1887, the guildhall was acquired by Sir Cuthbert Quilter, a local member of parliament, and he restored it in around 1911. It was used as a social club for American troops stationed nearby and also as a British Restaurant during the Second World War and, in 1946, Sir William Quilter gave it to the people of Lavenham. It became the property of the National Trust in 1951 and it was subsequently opened to the public as a local history museum.

Inside the guildhall, in addition to exhibits presenting the evolution of the guildhall from cloth trade to workhouse, there is a display of memorabilia associated with Lavenham railway station, which was a stop on the Long Melford–Bury St Edmunds branch line before it closed in 1961.

I walk around Market Lane. 

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. However, this was happening without the consent of parliament. 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. However, the revolt was suppressed for the King by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, with the aid of local families. Elizabeth I visited the town during a Royal Progress of East Anglia in 1578.

Like most of East Anglia, Lavenham was staunchly Parliamentarian throughout the Civil Wars of the 1640s. Most local landowners, such as Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston, Sir Philip Parker and Sir William Spring, were strong advocates of the Parliamentarian cause. 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. A grammar school opened in the town in 1647. The settlement was struck by plague in 1666 and 1699. Small pox struck in 1712 and 1713, killing over one in six of Lavenham's residents.

I walk over to a orange coloured building that I learn is Little Hall.

Little Hall Lavenham is a late 14th Century hall house on the main square, its story mirrors the history of Lavenham over the centuries. First built in the 1390s as a family house and workplace, it was enlarged, improved and modernised in the mid 1550s, and greatly extended later. By the 1700s it was giving homes to six families. It was restored in the 1920s/30s.

One of the oldest buildings in the best preserved of the Suffolk wool towns, medieval sources suggest that this 14th century house was built for the Causton family of clothiers and its subsequent development has mirrored the changing fortunes of Lavenham.

Little Hall was restored by the Gayer-Anderson brothers who filled the house with art and artefacts collected during their extensive travels. Study the development of the Tudor house, explore the collection, relax in its tranquil walled garden or, with a guide, hear the story of its occupants through the centuries.

It is now run as museum, but was closed today.

The Guildhall

I walk down Prentice Street a short distance, another street full of striking houses.

Bakers Mill.(Prentice St)

The name applies to a pleasantly arranged group of late 19th century industrial buildings. The main block of the building is designed in a Italian Romanesque style. A semi-circular brick arched doorway on the north front has a stone tablet inscribed "Built by J W and F W Baker". It is now apartments as so many historic buildings are now days.

Across the road is "Sheltons" 2 Prentice Street. Grade II Listed as Probably of 16th century origin a plaque on the wall declares it to be around 1430. It is recorded that in 1539 Robert Critofte the elder owned a tenement in Prentice Street called "Sheltons . . . as it butteth upon Trinity Hall on one side and upon John Hunt on the other". Any building to the west of Trinity Hall would almost certainly have formed part of the Angel, so we may conclude Critofte's tenement immediately to the east of the hall, with John Hunt's after that. The plaque reads "'SHELTONS' circa 1430 as recorded in the will of wool clothier ROBERT CRITOFTE the elder in 1539".

I walk back up Prentice Street back into Market Lane passing the Angel PH.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono filmed their experimental film Apotheosis with a hot-air balloon in Lavenham's Market Place in December 1969.

I walk through to High Street and follow this on down the hill.

In the late 18th century, the village was home to poet Jane Taylor, and it may have been while living in Shilling Street that she wrote the poem The Star, from which the lyrics for the nursery rhyme Twinkle Twinkle Little Star are taken. Colchester and Ongar, both in Essex, also have claims to be the site of composition of the poem.

I reach the Lavenham Village sign post and cross the bridge and take a foot path down to the Lavenham Walk.

Like many East Anglian settlements, Lavenham was home to an airbase in the Second World War II – Air Force Station Lavenham, an American Air Force airfield. USAAF Station 137 was manned by the US Army Air Force 487th Bombardment Group between 1944 and 1945. 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.

This is a walk from Lavenham to Long Melford - through woods and open fields - largely following the route of the old GER Lavenham to Long Melford railway line.

You could clearly see the line the old railway would have taken.

Signs of Autumn was all around, a lovely day to be out walking in the woods.

I follow the St Edmunds Way path for a while across farmland before crossing the busy A134.

Across the road I walk across a field and through High Street Farm and out onto Westgate Street.

High Street Farm

I walk along the house lined road for a way before I come to the gates to Kentwell Hall. I thought about walking up to see this, but its closed and looking on the map, its a long walk up, so I give it a miss. Maybe another time.

Kentwell Hall is a stately home in Long Melford, Suffolk, England. It includes the hall, outbuildings, a rare-breeds farm and gardens. Most of the current building facade dates from the mid-16th century, but the origins of Kentwell are much earlier, with references in the Domesday Book of 1086.

Kentwell has been the background location for numerous film and television productions, and, since 1979, has annually been the scene of Tudor period historical re-enactments, with weddings and other events and re-enactments taking place in more recent years.

The House: part original Tudor, with later classical elements, mixed with the owners' personal style. Tudor portraits, interesting artefacts and historic tapestries make this a family home with a difference.

The Gardens: romantic moats, extensive lawns, walled gardens, massive clipped yews, espaliered fruit trees and giant cedars surround the House. Over 30 acres of tranquil breathing space, with a surprise to delight the senses around every corner.

The Moat House: this rare survivor of a 15th Century service building rises sheer from the moat and contains the working dairy, bakery, brewhouse and stillroom.

I walk on further and I can now see the Holy Trinity Church and Holy and Blessed Trinity Hospital in Long Melford.

Holy and Blessed Trinity Hospital.

The Church of the Holy Trinity is a Grade I listed parish church of the Church of England in Long Melford. It is one of 310 medieval English churches dedicated to the Holy Trinity.

The church was constructed between 1467 and 1497 in the late Perpendicular Gothic style. It is a noted example of a Suffolk medieval wool church, founded and financed by wealthy wool merchants in the medieval period as impressive visual statements of their prosperity.

I walk in for a look about.

The church structure is highly regarded by many observers. Its cathedral-like proportions and distinctive style, along with its many original features that survived the religious upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries, have attracted critical acclaim. Journalist and author Sir Simon Jenkins, former Chairman of the National Trust, included the church in his 1999 book “England’s Thousand Best Churches”. He awarded it a maximum of 5 stars, one of only 18 to be so rated. The Holy Trinity Church features in many episodes of Michael Wood's BBC television history series Great British Story, filmed during 2011.

A church is recorded as having been on the site since the reign of King Edward the Confessor (1042–1066). It was originally endowed by the Saxon Earl Alric, who bequeathed the patronage of the church, along with his manor at Melford Hall and about 261 acres of land, to the successive Abbots of the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmund’s. There are no surviving descriptions of the original Saxon structure, although the roll of the clergy (see below) and the history of the site extend back to the 12th century.

The church was substantially rebuilt between 1467 and 1497. Of the earlier structures, only the former Lady Chapel (now the Clopton Chantry Chapel) and the nave arcades survive.

The principal benefactor who financed the reconstruction was wealthy local wool merchant John Clopton, who resided at neighbouring Kentwell Hall. John Clopton was a supporter of the Lancastrian cause during the Wars of the Roses and in 1462 was imprisoned in the Tower of London with John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford and a number of others, charged with corresponding treasonably with Margaret of Anjou. All of those imprisoned were eventually executed except John Clopton, who somehow made his peace with his accusers and lived to see the Lancastrians eventually triumphant at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

In 1710 the main tower was damaged by a lightning strike. It was replaced with a brick-built structure in the 18th century and subsequently remodelled between 1898 and 1903 to its present-day appearance, designed by George Frederick Bodley (Founder of Watts & Co. ) in the Victorian Gothic Revival style. The new tower was closer to its original form with stone and flint facing and the addition of four new pinnacles.

Sir William Cordell Tomb

Renaissance tomb of Sir William Cordell in Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford

Sir William Cordell was Speaker of the House of Commons under Queen Mary Tudor, and Master of the Rolls under Queen Elizabeth I. He died in 1581.

His renaissance tomb is decorated with four female statues representing Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance.

I leave the church behind and pass the Holy and Blessed Trinity Hospital.

The Hospital of the Holy Blessed Trinity was founded by Sir William Cordell in 1573. Cordell was then lord of the manor of Melford and he resided in nearby Melford Hall (qv), an impressive Elizabethan mansion house. Cordell was a man of national prominence, holding such high office as Master of the Rolls, High Steward of Ipswich and, in 1558, Speaker of the House of Commons. He had been born and raised in Melford and it was to the poor residents of the town that he gave the almshouses, endowing them with land and property in the surrounding area to ensure a regular source of income.

 The Hospital housed twelve 'brethren' and was built in a quadrangle with an inner courtyard garden and an outer walled garden. When it was first constructed the garden was enclosed by a wooden pale fence, but in 1632 the brethren requested that the garden be enlarged slightly and enclosed in a high brick wall. The request was prompted by the fact that the fruit trees inside were planted so close to the boundary that much of the fruit was stolen before the brethren could pick it. Four or five feet was duly taken from the adjacent village green and the wall completed in 1633 (Wigmore 1995). The garden was to be used for supplementing the diet of the residents by growing fruit and vegetables, as revealed by the Warden's accounts for the year 1731 (quoted in Wigmore 1995). An C18 painting by an unknown artist shows that at this time the gardens were formally laid out with grass plats, gravel walks and fruit trees trained on the south wall of the Hospital. In 1847 major renovations were undertaken to the building and a photograph taken during the 1890s reveals a greater intensity of planting here. Further modernisation to the interior were completed in 1964 while in 1981 the south and east faces of the garden wall were rebuilt. The property continues (1998) to be administered by the Trustees of the Hospital for the benefit of the poor of Long Melford.

I walked on down the road and up to the 13th century Market Cross or what remains of it anyway.

The market cross, believed to be 13th century in date, was probably erected sometime after the village was awarded a charter for a market by King Henry III in 1235.

It was destroyed by an anti-Catholic mob in 1642 who at the same time sacked Melford Hall, home of the Catholic Lady Rivers.

The Conduit  House built on the green to supply Spring water to Melford Hall across the road.

I cross the road and was disappointed to see Melford Hall was closed. This is just one reason not to re-join National Trust this year during the corona virus, very little places open but still charging full price!

Melford Hall is a stately home in t Long Melford. It is the ancestral seat of the Parker Baronets.

The hall was mostly constructed in the 16th century, incorporating parts of a medieval building held by the abbots of Bury St Edmunds which had been in use since before 1065. It has similar roots to nearby Kentwell Hall.

It passed from the abbots during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and was later granted by Queen Mary to Sir William Cordell. From Cordell it passed via his sister to Thomas and Mary Savage before being sold back into another male Cordell line.

During the Stour Valley Riots of 1642 the house was attacked and damaged by an anti-Catholic crowd. In 1786 it was sold to Harry Parker, son of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker.

Beatrix Potter was a cousin of the family and was a frequent visitor to the hall from the 1890s onwards.

One wing of the hall was gutted by fire in February 1942 but rebuilt after World War II, retaining the external Tudor brickwork with 1950s interior design.

The hall was first opened to the public in 1955 by Ulla, Lady Hyde Parker. In 1960 it passed into the care of the National Trust. It is generally open on weekend afternoons in April and October, and on afternoons from Wednesday to Sunday during May to September.

The Hall grounds host a number of events including the "Big Night Out" every November to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night and from 2013 the annual LeeStock Music Festival.

I walk on by and Come across a cottage where the Poet Edward Blunden lived from 1896 to 1974.

Long Melford, colloquially and historically also referred to as Melford, is a large village in the county of Suffolk. It is one of Suffolk's "wool towns" and is a former market town. The parish also includes the hamlets of Bridge Street and Cuckoo Tye.

Its name is derived from the nature of the village's layout (originally concentrated along a 3-mile stretch of a single road) and the Mill ford crossing the Chad Brook (a tributary of the River Stour).

I walk up Hall St into Long Melford centre.

The Manor of Melford was given to the Abbey of St. Edmundsbury by Earl Aflric c. 1050. The village is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, which lists the manor of Long Melford as an estate of 600 hectares. The neighbouring Manor of Kentwell is also recorded. During the Middle Ages the village grew and gained a weekly market and an annual fair in 1235.

Long Melford survived the Black Death in 1348-9, and was a brief stop-off in the Peasants' Revolt in 1381. By the early 15th century, the manor of Kentwell belonged to the Clopton family. John Clopton was arrested in 1461 and charged with treason. Clopton was spared execution and he was released and returned to Kentwell. There he organised and largely helped to pay for the rebuilding of the parish church, a notable example of a wool church. During this time the wealth of the parish was increasing, with most of the inhabitants being free men, renting their homes and lands. Guilds were founded, and weaving cloth became a key part of the village's economy. In the official inspector's returns for the year 1446, there were as many as 30 named weavers in Long Melford, who between them produced 264 finished "cloths".

Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Henry VIII granted the manor to Sir William Cordell.

In 1604, an epidemic of the plague arrived in Melford and 119 people died between the months of May and September. During the English Civil War, a Puritan mob of over one thousand arrived in Melford pursuing Elizabeth Savage, Countess Rivers, a staunch Catholic and Royalist, from her property in St Osyth to her Suffolk estate at Melford Hall. The hall was sacked and plundered and the Countess fled to Bury St Edmunds, then to London where eventually she was imprisoned for debt and died a pauper.

By the end of the 17th century, cloth production had once again become important in the area as many new entrepreneurs started to produce a range of materials known as 'Bays and Says', similar to baize and serge. These were lighter, cheaper types of cloth than the traditional woollen broadcloths that had been made in the 15th and 16th centuries but, once again, many of the cloth merchants became extremely wealthy and for some years prosperity returned to Melford.

Soon after the beginning of the 19th century, a range of new industries such as horsehair weaving, an iron foundry, a flax works and coconut matting started in Melford. By 1851, there were three horsehair manufacturers in Melford employing over 200 men, women and children. Prince Bertie, who later became King Edward VII, together with Princess Alexandra visited the village in November 1865, and large archways were constructed at key points in their honour to welcome them in, with the crowds. During the 1880s, a series of wage cuts in the coconut industry caused widespread anger and eventually resulted in strike action. Feelings ran high, culminating in a riot breaking out on polling day in December 1885, during which considerable damage was caused throughout the village. Troops were summoned from Bury St Edmunds to restore order; they arrived by train and marched from Melford station to read the Riot Act from the steps of the Police Station.

I sat outside the Bull PH for lunch on a bench. I then took Bull Lane and walked some way along the road.

After much road walking I cross the busy A134 and continue along Bull Lane. I take a footpath where Bull Lane meets Lavenham Road and its a relief to be off the road.

It now starts to rain a bit as I walk along woods and farmland.

A World War II Pillbox.

I re-join the path I took on my way to Long Melford and I follow this for a way.

After a while I take a path away from the Lavenham Walk and off uphill towards Balsdon Hall Farm.

I walk through Balsdon Hall Farm and down a track to Bridge Street Road. I walk down the road a short way before taking another footpath on my left.

The church of St Peter and St Pauls in Lavenham comes into view.

After walking through a muddy path I arrive at the church.

A church has existed on the current site, in a prominent position to the west of the town, since Anglo-Saxon times. The original church, which was probably wooden, was rebuilt in stone in the 14th century. The chancel is the oldest part of the current church, having been constructed in c. 1340 and decorated with money from wealthy citizens, including Thomas Spring II. In the decades following the Black Death the town of Lavenham grew rich as a result of the booming wool trade. The 14th-century church was added to and modified several times in order to convey the new wealth of its religious community. The eastern vestry, built in 1440, is the only other remaining part of the previous church building. Following the victory of Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, the Earl of Oxford, a major local landowner and commander of Henry's army, suggested that the church should be rebuilt in the latest style to celebrate the new Tudor king. However, it is likely that plans were already underway to rebuild the church in order to reflect the growing prosperity of Lavenham.

The reconstruction of the church took place mainly between 1485 and 1525. The architect is thought to have been John Wastell, who built the Church of St Mary the Great, Cambridge, which is very similar. The building is late perpendicular in its design, and regarded as one of the finest churches built in that style. It was also one of the last churches to be completed before the English Reformation. The extraordinary cost of the work was paid for by the local merchant families, who had become amongst the wealthiest in England. The same families continued to pay for the upkeep of the building, in some cases for centuries after its completion.

The two principal donors for church were the 13th Earl of Oxford and the cloth merchant, Thomas Spring of Lavenham. As such, the building is decorated with the coat-of-arms of the Spring and de Vere families. The Spring arms, as well as the merchant's mark of Thomas Spring, appears over thirty times on the exterior of the building, while the star of the de Vere family surrounds the top of the tower. A screen in the south aisle was possibly intended as a chantry chapel for the clothier Thomas Spourne, although his remains do not lie here, whilst the parclose screen in the north aisle was to the chantry of the Spring family, later ennobled by Charles I. The remains of Thomas Spring lie in the church and there are several monuments erected to his descendants, such as Francis Spring. North of the chancel is the Branch Chapel dating from around 1500 and south of the chancel is the Spring Chapel dating from around 1525.

The church was extensively restored by Francis Penrose between 1861 and 1867. The diplomat, Sir Cecil Spring Rice, gave substantial funds for repair work to the tower in the 20th century.

Work started on the tower in 1486 and was completed in 1495. However, due to a large sum of money being left in the will of Thomas Spring, further work was undertaken in the early 16th century, resulting in the unusual size and grandeur of the tower today. It is built in four stages, of knapped flint and stone with rare clasping buttresses. The tower ring comprises eight bells. The tenor weighs 21 cwt 7 lb, and was cast by Miles Graye of Colchester in 1625. The Lavenham Deanery guidebook says the bell has been described as "the finest toned bell in England, probably in the world". The bell is rung whenever a member of the royal family dies.

The church clock, which has no external dial, was made by Thomas Watts in 1775; an hour strike and quarter chimes were installed to mark Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.

I now walk back up the road to my car. Just over 11 miles walked and my feet are aching a bit. A wonderful walk between two fantastic Suffolk villages!