Ickworth is a small

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 ...

, almost coextensive with the estate of the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

Ickworth House Ickworth House is a country house at Ickworth, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England. It is a neoclassical building set in parkland. The house was the residence of the Marquess of Bristol before being sold to the National Trust in 1998. H ...

, in the

West Suffolk West Suffolk may refer to the following places in Suffolk, England: * West Suffolk (county), a county until 1974 * West Suffolk District, a local government district established in 2019 * West Suffolk (UK Parliament constituency), an electoral dist ...

district 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 ...

, 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 ...

, south-west of

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...

. The population of the parish was only minimal at the 2011 Census and is included in the civil parish of

Lawshall Lawshall is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. Located around a mile off the A134 between Bury St Edmunds and Sudbury, it is part of Babergh district. The parish has nine settlements comprising the three main settlements of The S ...

Landmarks

Ickworth has three main clusters of the 12 listed structures in the

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

park and garden which are: The main park also had the only

vineyard A vineyard (; also ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is known as viticulture. Vineyards ...

on National Trust land, until 2015 when it was grubbed up to allow the walled garden to be reinstated. An orchard of historic fruit trees was planted as the first stage of this plan.

History

Early history

Mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086 as having 12 heads of household (nine of which villagers (

villein A villein, otherwise known as ''cottar'' or ''crofter'', is a serf tied to the land in the feudal system. Villeins had more rights and social status than those in slavery, but were under a number of legal restrictions which differentiated them ...

s), three as smallholders) and four tied serfs (slaves), Ickworth rendered £3 and a small vill-tax to its overlords and was valued as being worth £4 per year.

Modern history

Samuel Lewis's overview of 1848 reads: The bulk of the land formed Lord Bristol's main freehold estate which was sold for public benefit to the National Trust to pay the precursor to

inheritance tax An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. International tax law distinguishes between an es ...

in 1956. In 2005 its population was estimated at 30.

Demography

The 2011 census does not provide a population (see above) although Ickworth is part of the west of Census Output Area E00153548, which had 275 inhabitants of which 185 lived in a detached dwelling, 16 lived in a purpose-built block of flats or tenement, five in part of a converted or bed-sit and one in a commercial building.2011 Census
E00153548 as parish facility is faulty or publicly prohibited for postcode IP29 5QE. Retrieved April 2013

Transport

To the east is the A143 which is linked to the A14 by the shortest route via a turning onto a minor straight road in

Horringer Horringer is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. It lies on the A143 about two miles south-west of Bury St Edmunds. The population in 2011 was 1055. Heritage Horringer was earlier known as Ho ...

, Westley Lane, immediately to the north. The A14 is a main East-West route in England which then leads west to: *The A11, its south spur onto the M11 *The M11 at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a 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. Cambridge bec ...

*The A1 at

Huntingdon Huntingdon is a market town in the Huntingdonshire district in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was given its town charter by King John in 1205. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire. Oliver Cromwell was born there ...

*The M1/M6 junction at Swinford, Leicestershire

References

External links

Neighbouring substantive village website: Horringer
{{authority control Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Borough of St Edmundsbury