Long Melford
Encyclopedia
Long Melford is a large village and civil parish
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...

 in the county of Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

, England. It is on Suffolk's border with Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, which is marked by the River Stour
River Stour, Suffolk
The River Stour is a river in East Anglia, England. It is 76 km long and forms most of the county boundary between Suffolk to the north, and Essex to the south. It rises in eastern Cambridgeshire, passes to the east of Haverhill, through Cavendish, Sudbury and the Dedham Vale, and joins the...

, approximately 16 miles (25.7 km) from Colchester
Colchester
Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...

 and 14 miles (22.5 km) from Bury St. Edmunds
Bury St. Edmunds
Bury St Edmunds is a market town in the county of Suffolk, England, and formerly the county town of West Suffolk. It is the main town in the borough of St Edmundsbury and known for the ruined abbey near the town centre...

. The parish also includes the hamlets of Bridge Street
Bridge Street, Suffolk
Bridge Street is a hamlet in Suffolk, England. Located on the A134 between Bury St Edmunds and Sudbury, it is part of the parish of Long Melford. It is named for the bridge over Chad Brook, a tributary of the River Stour....

 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
Watermill
A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...

 ford
Ford (crossing)
A ford is a shallow place with good footing where a river or stream may be crossed by wading or in a vehicle. A ford is mostly a natural phenomenon, in contrast to a low water crossing, which is an artificial bridge that allows crossing a river or stream when water is low.The names of many towns...

 crossing the Chad Brook (a tributary of the River Stour).

Long Melford is notable for its large collection of antiques shops and dealers

History

The area now occupied by Long Melford has been occupied since at least 100 B.C.. The village's layout was defined in Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 times with the empire building two roads
Roman road
The Roman roads were a vital part of the development of the Roman state, from about 500 BC through the expansion during the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Roman roads enabled the Romans to move armies and trade goods and to communicate. The Roman road system spanned more than 400,000 km...

 thorough Melford, the main one running from Chelmsford
Chelmsford
Chelmsford is the county town of Essex, England and the principal settlement of the borough of Chelmsford. It is located in the London commuter belt, approximately northeast of Charing Cross, London, and approximately the same distance from the once provincial Roman capital at Colchester...

 through to Pakenham
Pakenham, Suffolk
Pakenham is a village in the English county of Suffolk.It is to the east of Bury St. Edmunds and it administered as part of the borough of St Edmundsbury, until local government reorganisation in 1974 it was part of Thingoe Rural District...

. Roman remains were discovered in a gravel pit in 1828, a site now occupied by the village's football club.

The Manor of Melford was given to the Abbey
Abbey
An abbey is a Catholic monastery or convent, under the authority of an Abbot or an Abbess, who serves as the spiritual father or mother of the community.The term can also refer to an establishment which has long ceased to function as an abbey,...

 of St.Edmundsbury by Earl Aflric in ca. 1050. The village is recorded in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

of 1086 which lists the manor of Long Melford as an estate of 600 hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...

s. The neighbouring Manor of Kentwell
Kentwell Hall
Kentwell Hall is a stately home in Long Melford, Suffolk, England. It includes the hall, outbuildings, and 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...

 is also recorded. Following the dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

, Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 granted the manor to Sir William Cordell.

Landmarks

Long Melford is fairly unusual for a village in that it has a parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....

 of dimensions more suited to a cathedral
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...

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

 dates from the reign of Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor also known as St. Edward the Confessor , son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066....

; it was then substantially rebuilt between 1467 and 1497 by John Clopton of Kentwell Hall
Kentwell Hall
Kentwell Hall is a stately home in Long Melford, Suffolk, England. It includes the hall, outbuildings, and 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...

. It is one of the richest "wool churches" in East Anglia
East Anglia
East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...

 and is renowned for its flushwork
Flushwork
-Description:In architecture, flushwork is the decorative combination on the same flat plane of flint and ashlar stone. It is characteristic of the external walls of medieval buildings, most of the survivors being churches, in parts of Southern England, but especially East Anglia...

, The Clopton chantry
Chantry
Chantry is the English term for a fund established to pay for a priest to celebrate sung Masses for a specified purpose, generally for the soul of the deceased donor. Chantries were endowed with lands given by donors, the income from which maintained the chantry priest...

 chapel and the Lady Chapel at the East end with some surviving medieval stained-glass. Edmund Blunden
Edmund Blunden
Edmund Charles Blunden, MC was an English poet, author and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was also a reviewer for English publications and an academic in Tokyo and later Hong Kong...

, the World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 poet, is buried in the churchyard. Next to the church is the Hospital of the Holy and Blessed Trinity, an almshouse
Almshouse
Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...

 founded by William Cordell
William Cordell
Sir William Cordell was Solicitor General and Master of the Rolls during the reign of Queen Mary I and Speaker of the House of Commons during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I....

 in 1573.

Another unusual feature of Long Melford is its large elongated village green, dominated until the 1980s by a group of great elms that included one of the largest in England. The elms were painted in 1940 by the watercolourist S. R. Badmin
Stanley Roy Badmin
Stanley Roy Badmin was an English painter and etcher particularly noted for his book illustrations and landscapes.-Biography:Badmin was born in Sydenham in 1906, and went on to study at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal College of Art, London; he became one of the youngest ever...

 in his 'Long Melford Green on a Frosty Morning', now in the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...

.

The village contains two stately homes, Kentwell Hall
Kentwell Hall
Kentwell Hall is a stately home in Long Melford, Suffolk, England. It includes the hall, outbuildings, and 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...

 and Melford Hall
Melford Hall
Melford Hall is a stately home in the village of Long Melford, Suffolk, England. 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...

, all built from the proceeds of the wool trade in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

. Kentwell Hall and the Holy Trinity Church were financed by the Clopton family, in particular by John Clopton.

Transport

Long Melford once had a railway station
Long Melford railway station
Long Melford railway station is a disused railway station in Long Melford, Suffolk, England. It opened in 1865, as "Melford", and was renamed Long Melford in 1884. The station was part of the Stour Valley Line, operated by the Eastern Counties Railway, and served trains between Sudbury and...

 on the Stour Valley Line, but this closed in March 1967 when the line was cut back to Sudbury
Sudbury, Suffolk
Sudbury is a small, ancient market town in the county of Suffolk, England, on the River Stour, from Colchester and from London.-Early history:...

. It is connected to several large towns by bus, notably Sudbury, Colchester, Bury St Edmunds, Haverhill
Haverhill, Suffolk
Haverhill is an industrial market town and civil parish in the county of Suffolk, England, next to the borders of Essex and Cambridgeshire. It lies southeast of Cambridge and north of central London...

 and Ipswich
Ipswich
Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...

.

External links

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