Suffolk

 

Nayland, is a must, the village where the Rev . William Jones the composer of 'St. Stephen' a hymn that is still played today lived.  The rich legacy of timber-framed buildings in central southern Suffolk stems from the area's great wealth as a centre of woollen cloth production in the late Middle Ages and its relative poverty thereafter.

 

Nayland contains over 100 listed buildings, many of them timber framed and dating back as far as the mid 13th century. The golden age of building in the village was in the 14th to the late 16th centuries. In a 1522 tax survey, Nayland was ranked 42nd in the list of richest towns in the country.     Only Lavenham, ranked 13th on the same basis, possessing more wealthy cloth merchants.  Nayland was 3rd in the Babergh Hundred Muster of 1552 behind Lavenham and Boxford.

 

With the decline in the cloth industry during the late 16th and 17th centuries, other activities such as white and brown soap making, tanning, milling, malting and brewing became more important.   From this time and well into the 18th and 19th centuries, some of the timber-framed buildings were given fashionable brick or plaster facades.   This may have helped to preserve what is considered a nationally important collection of both high status merchants' houses and lower status artisans' dwellings.

 

Coal and other goods were carried upstream by barge, chalk and bricks from pits near Sudbury were brought downstream in return for onward transit to London.  Along the river the barges also picked up flour from the water mills, which, was an important source of employment for the village. The sheer wealth of historic buildings along with its superb regularly used church speaks for itself. There is a house in this village that has recently revealed a mummified cat and child's shoe built into its walls to ward off witches ... with a bit of luck we can get you into see this. This village is still active and with the most delightful public house right on the river situated beside a little bridge that was built by the Abel family .. who's son was Catherine of Aragons Chaplain.. now there lies another story!