Sutton is a village and a civil parish on the B1083 road, in the
East Suffolk district, in the county of
Suffolk, England. Sutton has a pub, a mobile post office and a place of worship. There is also the hamlet of
Sutton Street and the
Sutton Common
Sutton Common is the name of former common land and a district and neighbourhood located in Sutton, London. The area is mostly located within the London Borough of Sutton, with some of the streets to the north and west of Sutton Common Park ...
estate nearby.
History
Sutton in Old English means "Southern Farm"; ''sut'' meaning "south" and ''ton'' meaning "farmstead" or "settlement." John Marius Wilson described Sutton in the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1868) as
:... a parish, with a village, in Woodbridge district, Suffolk; on the river Deben, 3 miles SE of Woodbridge r. station. It has a post-office under Wood-bridge. Acres, 6,410; of which 430 are water.
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 manus ...
is the oldest public record of the village; the book features information on Sutton as early as 1086. In that year there were 77 families living in Sutton and the Lord of Sutton was
Robert Malet
Robert Malet (c. 1050 – by 1130) was a Norman-English baron and a close advisor of Henry I.
Early life
Malet was the son of William Malet, and inherited his father's great honour of Eye in 1071. This made him one of the dozen or so grea ...
.
Employment
According to the 1831 Enumeration, there were 680 people living in Sutton. One hundred of the 126 families in Sutton at the time were said to be "... chiefly employed in Agriculture. All parishes within the hundred of Wilford, including Sutton, according to this information had families working primarily in agriculture. Arthur Young toured Suffolk in 1784 and wrote three accounts of farmers he was introduced to in Sutton of which:
"Mr. William Waller, of Sutton, one of the greatest farmers in the neighbourhood, has 2700 acres, ploughs 1000, and has above 1000 sheep."
Other statistics taken from the 1831 Census were Social status. These statistics state that over three-quarters of the people living in Sutton were labourers and servants. Meanwhile, only a very small fraction of the population made up the middling sorts, that is owners of small farms. These statistics are based upon the contemporary ideas of social status not as people would judge them today.
Churches
All Saints' Church
All Saints' Church was built in 1555 and was largely reconstructed by the Victorians. This medieval church has a font that dates back before the Reformation, which is strange, as the Church now belongs to the Church of England. The font is the only remnants of a pre-Reformation church, as it burnt down in the 17th century. Notable people buried in the churchyard include:
*
Edith Pretty
Edith May Pretty (née Dempster; 1 August 1883 – 17 December 1942) was an English landowner on whose land the Sutton Hoo ship burial was discovered after she hired Basil Brown, a local excavator and amateur archeologist, to find out if anyth ...
(1883–1942), the landowner on whose land the
Sutton Hoo burials were discovered.
* Brian Forster Morton Franks
DSO MC TD (1910–1982), a former
lieutenant colonel in the
Special Air Service and an agent of
Secret Intelligence Service. He was educated at
Eton College
Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, ...
and fought in
World War II
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 opposing ...
. He was awarded the
MC in 1943, before gaining the rank of lieutenant colonel in the service of the
Middlesex Yeomanry
The Middlesex Yeomanry was a volunteer cavalry regiment of the British Army originally raised in 1797. It saw mounted and dismounted action in the Second Boer War and in World War I at Gallipoli, Salonika and in Palestine, where one of its offic ...
and receiving the
DSO in 1944. He was further decorated with the
Legion of Honour
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
and the ''
Croix de Guerre''. He gained the rank of honorary colonel in the service of the 21st SAS Regiment.
Baptist Chapel
There is also a small Baptist church, called the Chapel, located on Main Road, which was founded in 1813.
War memorial
In 1954 a Memorial Hall was built to commemorate all the soldiers from Sutton who fought in the Second World War. The hall was built by local people; both men and women participated in plastering the walls, donating electric heaters and buying curtains. The opening ceremony was held on 30 October 1958.
Governance
An
electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward includes
Bromeswell
Bromeswell is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England about 2 miles east of Woodbridge.
Situated near the River Deben
The River Deben is a river in Suffolk rising to the west of Debenham, though a second, ...
and had a total population of 3,014 at the 2011 Census.
Present day
Sutton is situated between the River Deben and Rendlesham Forest with the famous Sutton Hoo estate to the North of Sutton which is the site of an Anglo-Saxon ship burial. According to the 2011 census the parish has a population of 1,804.
The most common occupations in Sutton, according to the 2011 census, are Associate Professionals and Technical occupations especially in the Protective services.
Within Sutton there is a town hall known as Memorial Hall, a pub called the Plough Inn, the All Saints Church and a smaller Baptist church known as the Chapel. Nearby there are tourist attractions such as the Sutton Hoo burial site, Rendlesham Forest and the River Deben.
Memorial Hall
The Memorial hall is used to host community clubs. Clubs include a ladies' group that meet every second Thursday of each month and a computer group. The hall is also used for Pilates and dance classes. The recreation ground behind the hall is used by Sutton Heath Football club for their Under-14 and Under-12 teams as their original ground at Hollesley is too small to accommodate all the teams since the club has expanded. There is also a local bowls club that play on the green on the recreation ground. The bowls club have received a lottery grant to refurbish their hut for their closing tournament in September 2014.
Rendlesham Forest
The forest is owned by the Forestry Commission who have created many different walking and cycling trails, events and play areas throughout the forest. The forest is 1500 hectares large and in 1980 was the site of a UFO sighting (
Rendlesham Forest incident).
In 2012 a new parish boundary was created. Residents sent a petition to the Suffolk Coast District council for a new parish in the north-east of Sutton. The new parish is called
Sutton Heath
Sutton Heath is a civil parish on the former site of RAF Woodbridge, in the East Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England. The parish was formed on 1 April 2012 from part of the parish of Sutton. The new parish was created following ...
and was created because it is more urban than its surrounding area in Sutton and therefore has different needs.
Sutton Hoo
![Sutton Hoo Burial Mound](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Sutton_Hoo_Burial_Mound.jpg)
The Sutton Hoo Estate is 225 acres and contains the burial site of an Anglo-Saxon ship. Archaeologist
Basil Brown
Basil John Wait Brown (22 January 1888 – 12 March 1977) was an English archaeologist and astronomer. Self-taught, he discovered and excavated a 6th-century Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in 1939, which has come to be called "one of th ...
, working for the property owner discovered the Anglo-Saxon Burial at Sutton Hoo in 1940. The site is believed to be the final resting place of the king of East Anglia,
Rædwald. Most of the artefacts excavated now reside in the British Museum. The burial site is now owned by the National Trust and is a major tourist attraction with facilities such as a café, parking and a gift shop.
Sutton Hall
Sutton Hall is a Georgian country house with surrounding estates to the south of the village, formerly the home of
Sir Guy Quilter. It was sold in 2018 for over £31.5 million.
Bentwaters
RAF Bentwaters
Royal Air Force Bentwaters or more simply RAF Bentwaters, now known as Bentwaters Parks, is a former Royal Air Force station about northeast of London and east-northeast of Ipswich, near Woodbridge, Suffolk in England. Its name was taken fro ...
is an inactive military base located in Rendlesham Forest. The site is privately owned by a family business called Bentwaters Parks. Bentwaters Parks hires the site out to television and film making companies who wish to make use of the military style buildings located at RAF Bentwaters. The military base was the last to be built before the end of the Second World War. The area was chosen because of its flat terrain and because it was sparsely populated, and thus suitable for building the runways the base required.
The base had a large impact on the population of Sutton: from its opening in 1941, men came to work on the base, and the population of Sutton increased drastically as shown in a population graph.
References
* Philip's Street Atlas Suffolk, 2007 edition. p. 85.
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Villages in Suffolk
Civil parishes in Suffolk
Suffolk Coastal