Elveden is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. In 2005 it had a population of 270. The village is bypassed by the A11 between

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

and

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

, which ran through the centre of the village prior to 2014.

Etymology

The name ''Elveden'' seems to come from Old English *''ælfa-dene'' 'elves' valley': the name appears, translated into Latin, as ''vallis nympharum'' 'valley of nymphs' in the mid-12th-century ''Miracula sancte Wihtburge''. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the village was often referred to as ''Elden.''

Tourism

Elveden Hall Elveden Hall is a large stately home on the Elveden Estate in Elveden, Suffolk, England. The seat of the Earls of Iveagh, it is a Grade II* listed building. It is located centrally to the village and is close to the A11 and the Parish Church. Curr ...

is the centrepiece of the Elveden Estate, a vast

country estate An estate is a large parcel of land under single ownership, which would historically generate income for its owner. British context In the UK, historically an estate comprises the houses, outbuildings, supporting farmland, and woods that s ...

that is now the

family seat A family seat or sometimes just called seat is the principal residence of the landed gentry and aristocracy. The residence usually denotes the social, economic, political, or historic connection of the family within a given area. Some families ...

of the Anglo-Irish

Guinness family The Guinness family is an extensive Irish family known for its accomplishments in brewing, banking, politics, and religious ministry. The brewing branch is particularly well known among the general public for producing the dry stout Guinnes ...

, Earls of Iveagh. Formerly, it was the family home of

Maharaja Duleep Singh Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh, GCSI (4 September 1838 – 22 October 1893), or Sir Dalip Singh, and later in life nicknamed the "Black Prince of Perthshire", was the last ''Maharaja'' of the Sikh Empire. He was Maharaja Ranjit Singh's youngest son, ...

, who is buried in the churchyard of St Andrew and St Patrick Church; his grave is visited by the Sikh community who pay homage to the last ruler of the

Sikh Empire The Sikh Empire was a state originating in the Indian subcontinent, formed under the leadership of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who established an empire based in the Punjab. The empire existed from 1799, when Maharaja Ranjit Singh captured Lahor ...

. A Center Parcs holiday complex straddles the northern limit of the parish at Elveden Forest.

Elveden War Memorial

The Elveden War Memorial is a war memorial initially erected to the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

dead. It is situated at the meeting of the three parishes of

Eriswell Eriswell is a village and civil parish of West Suffolk in the English county of Suffolk. About forty scattered archaeological finds have been made here, including Bronze Age battle axes, palstaves and rapiers. The greater part of these objects ...

Icklingham Icklingham is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. It is located about north-west of Bury St Edmunds, south-east of Mildenhall and south-west of Thetford in Norfolk. The village is on the ...

and Elveden to which the monument honours. The names of the dead of each parish are listed separately on three of the sides of the column's base. To the original First World War listings there are also

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

additions. The fourth (NW) side has a locked door that is used to access the inside of the column and via a spiral staircase to get to the upper parts of the monument. Small slits in the column's sides are used to light its interior and can be easily seen from the outside. It is a Corinthian column tall, made of Weldon Stone and surmounted by an urn of Portland stone. Edward Cecil Guinness, owner of Elveden, commissioned the architect Clyde Francis Young to design and build the column, which took 2 years to erect and was completed in 1921. It was listed in 1954 and is now a Grade II* listed structure. War monuments of this type and height are rare, and it is thought that the design was inspired by the Coke Column or Leicester Monument which is located at the relatively close Holkham estate in Norfolk. Perhaps in an act of one-up-manship, the Thetford monument is slightly taller than its close-by companion, but out of tact is shorter than

Nelson's Column Nelson's Column is a monument in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, Central London, built to commemorate Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson's decisive victory at the Battle of Trafalgar over the combined French and Spanish navies, during whic ...

in London ( ) It is close to the A11, where there is a lay-by which can be used to visit the site.

Name appropriation

Operations "Elveden" and (coincidentally nearby) "

Weeting Weeting is a village in Norfolk, England. The population can be found in the civil parish of Weeting-with-Broomhill. The village's name means 'wet place'. Weeting St Mary Church Its church, St. Mary, stands close to the ruins of Weeting Ca ...

" were investigations surrounding the '' News of the World''-implicated

phone hacking Phone hacking is the practice of exploring a mobile device often using computer exploits to analyze everything from the lowest memory and central processing unit levels up to the highest file system and process levels. Modern open source toolin ...

allegations in July 2011.Statement from Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police
/ref> It was specifically that arising from the allegations of bribes or offers of bribes to the police, for third parties' private conversation details.

References

External links

Suffolk Churches *Elveden Estate websit
Elveden Estate , Norfolk
{{authority control Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Forest Heath