Suffolk, off the beaten track.

[mossie]

Having done my tour of Lavenham last week, the journey out there reminded me that there are equally interesting unsung places, and all within a few miles of Lavenham.

So today I went to Chelsworth and Bildeston.

How about Chelsworth, real chocolate box to start



It has a good selection of old buildings



Pity my car spoils the view but parking was not easy in a one street village





Although there is a side road crossing the little river



While trying to find the best viewpoint for the bridge, the swan who controls the river came to inspect me



The pub is the grandly named "Peacock" which does food



And some neighbouring property



I'll give you a rest now and move on to Bildeston later

[mossie]

Now Bildeston, which is one of the villages which moved to avoid the Black Death, or plague, which killed nearly half the population of England between 1348 and 1350.

However to be more cheerful, I'll now give a little lecture on the development of house styles. I've shown mostly timbered and even thatched houses, but when bricks became cheaper grander houses were possible. So the Joneses modernised their houses with posh new brick fronts. Here is a good example right in the middle of Bildeston High Street. Note the false windows in the dodgy looking top storey, and that it is possible to see an older roof just peeping over the top.



The side view makes the deception obvious



Here is another house where the woodwork has been plastered over but otherwise little has been done to posh it up



It carries this weird date panel which I cannot decipher



Again the street shows a good mix







A smart house well extended



Now heading off the main street in search of the church



Some resident has a car in keeping with the times, almost.



I hiked up the hill to the church, which stands a good half mile from the village. The place was devastated by the Black Death and the new inhabitants razed the old houses for fear they were contaminated and built he present village which I have been illustrating. However the church remained isolated but still in use to this day



At last the church came in to view



Looking back the village is almost lost to sight in the valley



At least the wheat is just ready for harvest



Coming up the hill I noticed several places where a fox or foxes had regular paths into the field



At last the church, and I can go in and have a rest on a pew, while I admire the angels who accompany the choir



The church is a good standard well kept local church



With an interesting memorial plaque to an old resident



So I now slog back down the hill, passing this row of what once were almshouses. Now they have been changed into a pair of bungalows by replacing most of the doors with windows. The old doorsteps have been left so making it obvious



I was in urgent need of another sit down and some coffee and headed to the pub/restaurant, the Bildeston Crown



This retains its beams and inglenook fireplace, it is many years since I have eaten here but it has a good reputation



Before I finish, a couple of architectural details. The wood has aged well considering it has been open to the elements for perhaps 500 years



And I love the addition of this corner window



So it was back to the little square where I had parked the car and home to a late lunch

[htmb]

This is delightful, Mossie. I enjoyed the history lesson, too. Interesting, the reason the church and town are so far apart.

[mossie]

The puzzle of the date panel on the yuk coloured house jumped out at me later on.

Ones mind jumps ahead of reality and dies predictive text. The date panel is simple MMII, or 2002, idiot. I had read the first stroke of the second M as 1.

As I was taking the shot a local came up to me and told me the place had been ruined by a new owner "doing it up". It had been a little hardware store but the owner had retired.

[mickthecactus]

Excellent Mossie, thanks.

[bixaorellana]

Wonderfully scenic day in the country, Mossie, with most interesting history and background as well -- thanks!

How are those thatched roofs kept up? Do they have to be completely replaced at intervals? If so, that would mean there are still working thatchers, right?

[mossie]

A thatched roof can have a serviceable life of at least 50 years, although some have survived far longer. The ridge is most vulnerable and should have attention every 10 or 20 years. So yes, there are still thatchers, not a cheap job nowadays but very eco friendly. A fire resistant treatment is also a necessity.

In the days when I was a farmworker corn had to be stored in ricks until the thrashing engine could be summoned, stacks were normally thatched. It was also the practice to store mangolds for cattle in clamps which were given a thatched roof to keep out the weather. There was always a farm labourer who could turn his hand to thatching, they had to be jacks of all trades in those days.

[bixaorellana]

Interesting! What is a clamp -- like a silo?

[Deleted]

I think you can still see a few thatched roofs in Normandy and Brittany, but I suspect that very few thatched roofs are authentic anymore and are just a thatch covering over a solid roof. Frankly, thatch does not appeal to me as a building material even though it looks cute, because I have seen too many movies where the Huns, Vikings or whatever set fire to them in an instant.

It looks like a very pretty village, though, and wheatfields in the sunshine are always beautiful. The confusion over the MMII made me smile because it isn't immediately obvious, and it reminds me of the confusion that a lot of people had when M&M's used the slogan "the candy of the millennium" in the year 2000 and a lot of people didn't get it. It's interesting about why the church is not in the village. It was probably good intuition on the part of the villagers to decide that the old village was a bad place full of plague and it would be better to build a new village, even if they were not exactly sure why in those days. I assume that they remembered to set fire to all of the thatched roofs when they left -- that would have taken care of quite a few of the rats.

[tod2]

That was a lovely little trip Mossie! Those half-timbered houses reminded me of Wivenhoe in Essex. And at least a dozen or so other English villages...

Thanks for pointing our some unusual architectural details for us!

[breeze]

Definitely these are chocolate box villages. Where are the Helen Allingham flower gardens that should be out front, though? You're toying with my English village fantasy!

Can you tell I read Lark Rise to Candleford during one of my formative periods?

We just saw on a French TV program a thatcher at work somewhere near the coast of Normandy. He was using reeds from the Camargue. He has enough work to keep him busy.

There's a village along the Seine, Vieux-Port, that's mostly thatched roofs (and Jaguars in the driveway), and the roof ridges in that area are always planted with irises. The TV thatcher said that's what would finish off the roof he was working on.

[nycgirl]

Those thatched roof houses are so charming. I also love the shots of the wheat fields.

[tod2]

There's a village along the Seine, Vieux-Port, that's mostly thatched roofs (and Jaguars in the driveway), and the roof ridges in that area are always planted with irises. The TV thatcher said that's what would finish off the roof he was working on.

I googled that little village and it is very very English - looking! Very charming.

[mossie]

I apologise Bixa for confusing you with English dialect. A clamp is a store of root vegetables in which the potatoes, mangel wurzels or turnips etc., are stacked in a convenient place often layered in soil and with a covering of soil, where they can be used in the winter. The clamp would be thatched to keep out the rain and there would be little chimneys made out of a bundle of straw, to provide ventilation. I can remember my father bringing similar produce back from his allotment and clamping them beside the bungalow.

[bixaorellana]

How interesting, Mossie! It's sort of an above-ground cellar, isn't it? Clever.

[tod2]

Mossie, I too appreciated the explanation to Bixa's question.
Before the equipment to roll those round bales of hay one sees lying on the open field wrapped in plastic, my farmer father used to use the old fashioned silo. It went partly underground (I suppose to get the maximum storage?). When mealie ( corn) season was over the salks were thrown in and sprayed with molasses. The cows loved it.

[mossie]

Don't talk to me about bales! When i worked on a farm we had to build a stack of 80lb bales. I was equipped with a pitchfork and told to feed the stacker, his job was to build the stack by correctly placing the bales. All went well in the morning, but after lunch, when the stack was about 6 foot high, lifting those bales above head height and swinging them where they were required became increasingly harder. I was most relieved when we had finished. I couldn't collapse of course, I had about a two mile bike ride home.

[bixaorellana]

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”

[tod2]

Mossie, I am surprised your young years were quite so hard. Many a day our old friend from the Isle of Wight used to regale us with tales of his staunch upbringing and how cruel his father was.
Eight boys and one girl they had to work in the field after school until sundown, pulling swedes.
This was in the 1800's. No wonder he never saw the sea until he was nine years old.....and they lived on an island..!
He made old bones and died when he was 94. Only one brother married very late in life so hence no off-spring to continue the family.
Hard times indeed.

[mossie]

I didn't think my times were hard, it was a fairly normal life which one just got one with. Todays youth are fed fairy tales by their teachers of going to university and having a "career". Most of them have no idea what the word means and hard work, either mental or physical is not in the syllabus. Maybe I am being unfair, but when we are swamped by foreign migrants, while at the same time the bosses are clamouring for more to come because they have a work ethic which is being bred out here.

[mossie]

For a change today I went on a walk with a group of friends which passed the old church at Ramsholt near Woodbridge. This is nicely isolated and the tower was reputedly originally saxon about 800AD built as a watch tower against the Viking invaders who used this river inlet



The church was added later by the Normans, although this east window is what is classed as Early English dating from about 1100



The priests door is typical, very small so he could slip in and out quietly



The tower is one of the rarer roughly circular ones and has been much altered over the years



It gives a good outlook. In the distance are the cranes of Felixstowe Dock

[bixaorellana]

Yay, there is more Suffolk!

I absolutely love that first shot across the field to the tower. Is the building with the peaked roof in front of the tower an addition or a separate building? Any idea how long the tower remained in practical use?

Beautiful and charming pictures -- the one of the side of the church and a bit of its graveyard particularly won me.

[Deleted]

I am attracted to the photos of the ageless countryside nevertheless encroached upon by the high tension lines, water towers, boats and cranes of the modern world. It is what proves that these areas are still very much alive rather than just being museum pieces.

[mossie]

The building in front of the tower is the church which has been grafted on.
Although the churchyard looks a bit of a mess, it is tended and the church is still in use

[cheerypeabrain]

A very interesting thread mossie...beautiful images too. X

[mossie]

Today is normally a food shopping day but the forecast was for good weather today turning dull and wet tomorrow, so I decided There was enough in the fridge for today and set off for the little town of Haldeigh not too far away. Passing out of Ipswich into the surrounding prairie one passes this farmstead, nowadays the machinery is so big little barns cannot house it so barns like this are abandoned and fall into ruin



Reaching Haleigh I set off for the church but found directions here. Actually the man who lettered this milepost in the town centre knew how far London was but was perhaps not too sure about a dump like Ipswich. Or maybe he was half Roman



Anyway here is the church hiding in the trees



One notable rector was the first Catholic martyr of Queen Mary in 1555 when Dr Rowland Taylor was burnt at the stake. Old punishments ranked high and the town had gallows and stocks and a whipping post, things to liven up some of our wrongdoers today perhaps.

Back to the church, difficult to get a good photo because of the congested nature of the churchyard and the trees



It is basically 15th century but has been strongly Victorianised and recent generations have done their bit as this modern window shows



This window has been missed by the cleaners and forms a wonderful spiders home.



There are some nice little corbels supporting the roof timbers



The roof here looks like a model made out of matchsticks



There are some odd details as this plasterwork



and it looks as though Shaun has been ordained to encourage the younger congregation



Difficult to get a good shot of the font with its delicate wooden cover



There is some nice bright Victorian stained glass



But now off into the typical high street in search of coffee



Here is an excellent large house now divided into three



and a more typical bike shop



Some Tudor fish and chips with a Tudor phone number



This pub shows how the old timbered frame has been hidden behind a posh Georgian frontage



Here on another house the disguise has slipped a bit. The gutter looks none too efficient either.



Pity my daughter is not still about, I could have really teased her with this




It leads to this pleasant little courtyard with another fancy boutique



This house has proper church windows



Pound lane is not where the money is, the pound was where stray animals were shut up until the owner reclaimed them, and sometimes was used as the town jail. The word gives us impound and compound as well.



But it was goodbye to Haleigh and the church and off for lunch

[mossie]

Blast it, that last picture should have been this. Why the heck can't I edit these threads

[bixaorellana]

Shaun wasn't merely ordained -- he's a bishop!

Love the guy with his laptop in the church. The way he's hunched over it in his brown jacket with the hood makes him look like an old-time monk.

That is a crime to let the lovely barn fall into ruin. It would seem to make economic & aesthetic sense to keep it in decent shape for some eventual use.

It's nice to see signs on the high street indicating that the needs of local farmers are being catered to & that everything isn't being turned into ye olde shoppe.

Love the modern church window shot & especially the spider window.

[bjd]

I just looked through this whole thread. It all does look so very pretty and well-kept that it seems almost too good to be true.

In fact, the collapsed barn seems like a normal reaction by farmers -- letting things go because maintaining a building they have no use for is expensive. That is often seen when we drive through the French countryside too.

Is the area slowly being depopulated by younger people, mossie? Most of those in your photos are older, but that may be because it's daytime and the younger people are at work. Do they have to leave for bigger cities to find work? And do those who renovate those old houses come from elsewhere to retire?

[mossie]

You are right that the younger people should all be at work, ensuring that us oldies are well provided for. In truth this is a fairly affluent part of the world and the proportion of retired people is perhaps above average. I am no doubt representative, I have my old age pension, which on its own would just about keep me in basics, now that the house is all mine so I only pay council tax on it. In addition of course I have a pension from my last employer which pays about the same amount again and a few scraps of interest from the savings I am gradually whittling away to buy holidays and computers etc.

I do feel sorry for the younger generation where housing costs have gone through the roof, houses are now unaffordable for people on normal employment. Rents are being pushed to higher and higher levels, and all the while immigration is adding to the pressures. They are encouraged to attend university and leave with mediocre degrees and raised expectations in the job they will get, plus a large debt. Absolutely no foundation to start a family, let alone live a good life. Our useless leaders live the high life completely out of touch with normal people. Sorry I do get very frustrated with this country now.