Holton 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 authority ...

in the East Suffolk district, in the county of

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, England, near the town of

Halesworth Halesworth is a market town, civil parish and electoral ward in north-eastern Suffolk, England. The population stood at 4,726 in the 2011 Census. It lies south-west of Lowestoft, on a tributary of the River Blyth, upstream from Southwold. T ...

, with a population of 832 in the 2011 Census. Holton is split into two parts — Upper Holton and Holton.

History

Although it is often referred to as Holton St Peter, such as in the name of its primary school, the 'St Peter' suffix was adopted by some village institutions to prevent confusion with

Holton St Mary Holton St Mary is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. Located on the B1070 around five miles south-west of Ipswich and half a mile from the A12 (which forms the parish's south-east boundary), it is part of Babergh district. The wes ...

, another village in Suffolk. However, a proposed name change was rejected by the Parish Council and the village officially remains 'Holton' to this day. Holton is an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

place name meaning 'village in a hollow' and the site was probably inhabited from Neolithic times. A few Roman artefacts have been found locally and it is possible that the Blyth river was forded here (at Mells) as it lies on the route of an ancient trackway from

Dunwich Dunwich is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB around north-east of London, south of Southwold and north of Leiston, on the North Sea coast. In the Anglo-Saxon period, Dunwich was t ...

Beccles Beccles ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the English county of Suffolk.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . The town is shown on the milestone as from London via the A145 and A12 roads, north-east of London as the crow fli ...

. Holton Hall, demolished in 1957 and replaced by a caravan park, had many famous connections to the anti-slavery movement and

Barclays Bank Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services. Barclays traces ...

Features

The church of Holton St Peter is one of 38 existing

round-tower church Round-tower churches are a type of church found mainly in England, mostly in East Anglia; of about 185 surviving examples in the country, 124 are in Norfolk, 38 in Suffolk, six in Essex, three in Sussex and two each in Cambridgeshire and Berkshi ...

es in

built by the

Normans The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; french: Normands; la, Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Fran ...

in the 11th century. Holton has a primary school, two shops — Market Fields Farm Shop and Holton Orchards Farm Shop - and a public house, the Lord Nelson. This closed in 2008 but was later extended and refurbished, and re-opened in 2013 as a restaurant and pub. It closed again in July 2015. Apart from

Bernard Matthews Farms Bernard Matthews Holdings Ltd., trading as Bernard Matthews Foods Ltd, is a British farming and food products business with its headquarters in Great Witchingham, Norfolk, England, which specialises in turkey products. Founded by Bernard Matt ...

, there is a small industrial site at the airfield with small workshops and a feed store. The community produces a bi-monthly magazine, 'The Holton Post'. Holton also boasts a

post mill The post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. Its defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single vertical post, around which it can be turned to bring the sails into the wind. All p ...

, parts of which date back to the 18th century. The mill had been left in a state of disrepair in the 1960s but was rescued and has been restored on numerous occasions since, and its sails started working again in 1996. The mill is now under private ownership but is sometimes opened to the public.

Avian flu outbreak

An outbreak of

avian influenza Avian influenza, known informally as avian flu or bird flu, is a variety of influenza caused by viruses adapted to birds.

of the

H5N1 Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 (A/H5N1) is a subtype of the influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species. A bird-adapted strain of H5N1, called HPAI A(H5N1) for highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of typ ...

strain was confirmed on 3 February 2007, at a farm near Holton owned by

Bernard Matthews Bernard Trevor Matthews CVO CBE QSM (24 January 1930 – 25 November 2010) was the founder of Bernard Matthews Farms, a company that is best known for producing turkey meat products. Early life Bernard Trevor Matthews was born in 1930 in Br ...

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Waveney District