A wander among Suffolk mills, skies and harvest.

Suffolk is known for its BIG skies and has inspired many artists to pitch their easels in the countryside and paint what is before them - or pick up a camera and try to capture the image as I do!

Harvest time is one of the good times to see Suffolk skies at their best, with the contrast between golden corn and blue sky with white fluffy clouds. Magic!

Masters of air - the windmill and aircraft

Pakenham Mill is a Grade II listed tower mill which has been restored and is maintained in working order.

It was built in 1831.Clement Goodrich was the miller in 1846, when he took on an apprentice. The mill came into the ownership of the Bryant family in 1885. A steam engine was used as auxiliary power. In 1947, the mill was nearly tail-winded, but the miller managed to turn the cap in time to avoid this happening. 

What, you may ask, is that?Well, apparently a windmill caught with the wind blowing towards the rear side of its sails, has a risk of reversal of rotation and consequential damage. It also carries a risk of the CAP blowing off a TOWER or SMOCK mill if the wind is strong.

The mill was restored in 1950, with a new weather beam fitted by Amos Clarke, the Ipswich millwright. At this time the swing-pot neck bearing from Buxhall mill was installed. A second-hand stock from Thurston post mill was fitted at this time and a gallery constructed around the cap. The gallery was based on that at Wendover mill, Buckinghamshire. New sails were also fitted.

Further restoration took place in 1961, aided by grants from Suffolk County Council, the Ministry of Works. The work was conditional on the Bryant family continuing to work the mill. The restoration work was carried out by R Thompson & Sons Ltd, millwrights of Alford, Lincolnshire. The copper covered cap was rebuilt and clad in aluminium for maintenance reasons. A new stock and two new sails were made, and the fantail rebuilt. The mill was struck by lightning in June 1971, a stock being split and a sail damaged. The sack chain saved the mill from being burnt down by giving a route for the lightning to earth. When the mill was repaired, a lightning conductor was added to the mill.

The most recent restoration of Pakenham windmill was completed in May 2000. The £60,000 cost of the work was 80% funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. 

Pakenham also boasts a Water Mill.

This is the oldest surviving flour mill in Suffolk, where once there were many. There has been a watermill in Pakenham for almost a thousand years, and for all that time millers on this site have been using the simple technology of water power to produce stone-ground wholemeal flour for local people. Owned today by the Suffolk Building Preservation Trust, a team of dedicated volunteers continues this long tradition.

Water coming mainly from underground springs on Pakenham Fen is diverted into our huge millpond and used to turn the 16ft high cast iron waterwheel that drives the millstones.

Flour milling goes on all the year round. We are open to visitors during the summer months. Inside the mill all the machinery is visible (and safely guarded) and a friendly guide will show you round and explain how it all works. If you come on a Thursday morning between about 10.00 and 11.30 you are likely to see the mill actually working and the flour being produced and bagged up for sale. You should also take a look at the old kitchens in the Miller’s House displayed as they were in the past.

Another St Mary - this time at Walsham-Le-Willows

When William the Conqueror ordered a written survey of England in 1086, Walsham (the Saxon name) already had a church. A church was here when that Domesday Survey was made in 1086.

Many pre–conquest Suffolk churches were built of flint, the natural stone of East Anglia. That building has long gone, though the materials have been used and reused over the centuries. A recognisable fragment from the late 1100s can be seen in the north aisle. The tower and the font belong to the 1300s, but the church had its greatest make-over from about 1400, when the builders were busy, on and off, for a century.

The oak roof is one of the finest in a county famous for its church roofs. The tie-beams alternate with the stubby hammer beams which take the thrust from above, and originally they were decorated with carved angels.

The basic roof was finished by 1450, but additional decorations were added in 1475, the year that John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, became Lord of the Manor. The King, Edward IV was his brother-in-law, and as a loyal gesture he nailed up the King’s favourite badge, the rose en soleil. This device can be seen on most of the roof-braces. The paint too, now beautifully faded, dates from 1475.

The carved angels on the hammer beams were removed by the churchwardens in 1538, acting on the orders of Edward IV’s grandson, Henry VIII. The carvings, then less than a century old, must have been lifted off quite carefully and the wooden tenons which fixed them are still in place, and can be plainly seen.

Eight-sided pillars or piers frame the nave. Mostly I see round ones in other churches.

The pretty church in Rattlesden which we will return to explore another day. A beautiful village though.

What on earth are these I wondered? The Primitive Methodist Church is a body of Holiness Christians within the Methodist tradition, which began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834).

In the United States, the Primitive Methodist Church had eighty-three parishes and 8,487 members in 1996. In Great Britain and Australia, the Primitive Methodist Church merged with other denominations, to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain in 1932 and the Methodist Church of Australasia in 1901. The latter subsequently merged into the Uniting Church in Australia in 1977.

Upthorpe Mill is a Grade II listed post mill and Scheduled Ancient Monument

Upthorpe Mill was built in 1751. It was originally built as an open trestle post mill. In 1818 it was moved to its present site in Stanton. At some point in time the Common sails were replaced by Double Patent sails, a roundhouse later being added and a fantail fitted to turn the mill into wind automatically. The mill ended its commercial working life on a single pair of sails. It was disused by 1918 and in 1937 was becoming derelict. The mill was worked during the war, but ceased to be used in 1946 as it was unprofitable. By the late 1960s, the mill was again becoming derelict, and the fantail was carefully dismantled. In 1979, emergency repairs were carried out by Suffolk Mills Group and in 1986 the mill was bought by Richard Duke. Restoration work was carried out and the mill was able to grind again in 1990. In 1993, the mill was bought by Peter Dolman and further restoration work was carried out.

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Abbey Gardens at Bury St Edmunds

Bury St Edmunds is a great place to visit at most time of year. A summer visit calls for a look around the Abbey Gardens - well worth it, and a great spot to sit in the sun or have lunch and watch the world go by. Historically, Bury has many splendid places to look at, but the gardens are not to be missed.

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The riverside town of Woodbridge

Woodbridge is one of those places where you never mind going back. Well I don`t anyway! It has history, by the bucketful, and beautiful walks by the river Deben. Here are some images of a couple of visits, starting with the iconic view of Woodbridge, the Tide Mill.

But before moving down to look at the images, a bit of history. 

The earliest record of Woodbridge dates from the mid-10th century, when it was acquired by St Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, who made it part of the endowment of the monastery that he helped to refound at Ely, Cambridgeshire in AD 970.The Domesday Book of 1086 describes Woodbridge as part of the Loes Hundred. Much of Woodbridge was granted to the powerful Bigod family, who built the famous castle at Framlingham. (Thats for another day)

The town has been a centre for boat-building, rope-making and sail-making since the Middle Ages. Edward III and Sir Francis Drake had fighting ships built in Woodbridge. The town suffered in the plague of 1349, but recovered enough, with encouragement from the Canons, and growing general prosperity, to have a new church (now St Mary's, behind the buildings on the south side of Market Hill) constructed with limestone from the Wash and decorated with Thetford flint. By the mid-15th century the Brews family had added a tower and porch.

On 12 October 1534, Prior Henry Bassingbourne confirmed Henry VIII's supremacy over the Church and rejected the incumbent "Roman Bishop". Nonetheless, Woodbridge Priory was dissolved three years later. 

As religious unrest continued in the reign of the Roman Catholic Mary Tudor, Alexander Gooch, a weaver of Woodbridge, and Alice Driver of Grundisburgh were burnt for heresy on Rushmere Heath. Alice previously had her ears cut off for likening Queen Mary to Jezebel. The subsequent religious settlement under Elizabeth I helped Woodbridge industries such as weaving, sail-cloth manufacture, rope-making and salt making to prosper, along with the wool trade. The port was enlarged, and shipbuilding and timber trade became very lucrative, so that a customs house was established in 1589. 

Now for some images.

The first record of a tide mill here on the River Deben is in 1170. A tide mill has stood in Woodbridge for over 800 years, using the green energy of the tide to drive a huge waterwheel, grinding an authentic stone-ground wholemeal flour. It demonstrates over 800 years of English technological and cultural heritage from Norman times to date. The present mill was built in 1793 and its massive working machinery displays the skills and achievements of the early Industrial Revolution. 

When it closed in 1957, it was the last commercially working tide mill in the UK; now fully restored, so that today it is a unique ‘living’ museum. It is spread over three floors, featuring an introductory video, unique computer generated imagery (CGI) to show how grain and flour move around the mill, interactive models, audio stations, and superbly illustrated exhibition panels. 

The Mill is dependent on the tides and heights of the tide, but the machinery can turn most days although at different times. Milling can only take place when both aspects of the tides are right, but usually several times a month. 

It is one of Suffolk’s most iconic buildings and a visit to Woodbridge is incomplete without the photo! 

Boats moored nearby in the marina.

Ye Olde Bell and Steelyard Pub is a black and white timber frame building on New Street. The cage on the side of the pub houses is the Steelyard or weighing machine that was the forerunner to the public weighbridge. The steelyard was introduced after the government passed a Road Traffic Act introducing a toll for carts carrying loads over 2.5 tons to protect road surfaces from damage from their steel banded wheels. According to local records this steelyard was added to the original pub around 1680. I believe it is one of only two in the country.

Unfortunately, in 2018 it was destroyed by a rogue lorry

Originally built by Thomas Seckford, the upper part of the Shire Hall was used for judicial purposes while the ground floor served as an open corn market. Many changes followed over the intervening centuries, notably the addition of Flemish gabling and stone capping in the 17th Century and the bricking up of the archways in the early 19th Century. However, the Hall continued to serve in a judicial capacity until recent times, maintaining a link with the Elizabethan era.

The beautiful Grade I Listed Shire Hall building is now owned by Woodbridge Town Council and located in the centre of the Market Hill. 

Thomas Seckford is one of the famous sons of Woodbridge. 

Born near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, Seckford was educated at Cambridge, and in 1540 entered Gray's Inn. Thomas became one of Queen Elizabeth I’s two Masters in Ordinary of the Court of Requests (from 1558 probably until death) which dealt with poor men’s causes. One of the duties of this post was to accompany the monarch as she journeyed around her realm. He would thus have been particularly known to the Queen. He is believed to have played a prominent part in arranging the Elizabethan Church Settlement. In 1564, she sold him the manor of Woodbridge, including the site of Woodbridge Priory, and he became a benefactor to both the church and town. He was junior Knight of the Shire (MP) for Suffolk in 1571. 

He was an MP for Ripon in November 1554, for Orford in 1555 and 1558, for Ipswich in 1559, 1563 and 1572 and for Suffolk in 1571. 

Elizabeth is known to have held court at the Seckford family seat, Seckford Hall. 

In 1574 Thomas commissioned Christopher Saxton to survey all the English counties and produce an atlas of the realm. This was published in 1579, the first ever done from an actual survey. Elizabeth granted him a patent for its sole publication for ten years. 

He founded seven almshouses in Woodbridge in 1586 which he endowed with an income of £112 13s 4d (£112.66p) per year from land in Clerkenwell, Middlesex. He also paid for the old Woodbridge Abbey to be rebuilt. His wealth is still benefiting Woodbridge today. 

He died in 1587 aged 72, never having had children, and was buried in a chapel on the north side of St. Mary's Church which is now an organ chamber. His coat of arms can be seen in the north window of the west wall of the church. 

Buttrum's Mill or Trott's Mill is a Grade II listed tower mill at Woodbridge, Suffolk, England which has been restored to working order 

It was built in 1836 by John Whitmore, the Wickham Market millwright, replacing an earlier post mill. The mill was run for many years by the Trott family, for whom it was built, and later by the Buttrum family. 

It worked by wind until 11 October 1928. The shutters were removed from the sails in 1934 and stored in the mill. The mill was bought at auction in 1937 by Mr Kenney, a mill enthusiast. The fantail was blown off in the 1940s, damaging the cap. A lease on the mill was granted to East Suffolk County Council in 1950. The council aimed to preserve an example of each main type of windmill. The derelict mill was restored from 1952 by Thomas Smithdale and Sons, the Acle, Norfolk millwrights for East Suffolk County Council. The work, costing £4,000 was completed in 1954. It was part funded by the Pilgrim Trust. The wrought iron gallery round the cap was replaced with a wooden one. A new cap and fantail was built. The fantail was damaged in a gale in December 1966 and in 1973 a new stock and sail were fitted. In the late 1970s, further restoration work was carried out by Millwrights International Ltd. A new cap was craned onto the mill in 1982 and new sails were fitted in 1984. 

I am sure that there is a lot more to see in the area and think that another visit is needed! 

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