Saxmundham ( ) is a

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

in Suffolk,

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 ...

, set in the valley of the River Fromus about north-east of

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...

and west of the coast at

Sizewell Sizewell is an English fishing hamlet in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It belongs to the civil parish of Leiston and lies on the North Sea coast just north of the larger holiday village of Thorpeness, between the coastal town ...

. The town is bypassed by the main A12 road between London and Lowestoft. The town is served by

Saxmundham railway station Saxmundham railway station is on the East Suffolk Line in the east of England, serving the town of Saxmundham, Suffolk. Situated between and , it is down the line from , and from London Liverpool Street. Its three-letter station code is S ...

on the East Suffolk Line between

and Lowestoft.

Governance

Saxmundham Town Council comes under

East Suffolk District East Suffolk is a local government district in Suffolk, England, which was established on 1 April 2019, following the merger of the existing Suffolk Coastal and Waveney districts. At the 2011 census, the two districts had a combined population o ...

. It was previously in Suffolk Coastal District before April 2019. The district electoral ward also has the name Saxmundham. Its population at the 2011 census was 4,913. As of December 2022, Saxmundham Town Council consisted of ten councillors.

Heritage

The place-name Saxmundham is first attested 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 manus ...

of 1086 as ''Sasmunde(s)ham''. It appears as ''Saxmundham'' in the Feet of Fines of 1213. The name denotes "Seaxmund's village or estate". The Parish Church of St John the Baptist dates back to the 11th century. Some features remain from the medieval period, but its present appearance owes most to the 19th century. Much of the church's official architectural guide, with accounts of its medieval remnants, can be read on the Town Council site.

Facilities

Saxmundham has facilities for overnight, bed-and-breakfast and camping accommodation. It has had a

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, an ...

charter since at least 1272, and holds a market every Wednesday in the Market Place just off the High Street, with indoor and outdoor stalls.

Notable residents

With a Wikipedia page, in birth order: * John Shipp (1784–1834), army officer, was born in Saxmundham. His military memoirs were widely read in the 19th century. * Henry Bright (1810–1873), painter * Thomas Thurlow (1813–1899), sculptor * Hamlet Watling (1818–1908), archaeologist, illustrator and schoolmaster *

Bernard Collins Bernard Abdy Collins (17 February 1880 – 22 October 1951) was a British administrator in India and English first-class cricketer. Collins was born at Saxmundham in February 1880 to Henry Abdy Collins and his wife, Florence Ellen Cartwri ...

(1880–1951), county cricketer, also wrote a book on life after death: ''Death is Not the End'' (London: Psychic Press, 1939). *

Buck Read Herbert William "Buck" Read (February 8, 1880 - August 15, 1970) was an American basketball coach. He was the head coach for the Western Michigan Broncos men's basketball team from 1922 through 1949. He was also president of the National Associat ...

(1880–1970), American basketball coach, was born in Saxmundham. * Herbert Heyner (1882–1954), baritone, died here. * Eleanor Berwick (born 1943), wine-grower *

Maggi Hambling Margaret ("Maggi") J. Hambling (born 23 October 1945) is a British artist. Though principally a painter her best-known public works are the sculptures '' A Conversation with Oscar Wilde'' and '' A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft'' in London, ...

(born 1945), artist, has lived in a cottage near Saxmundham since the mid-1980s. *

Sam Miller Sam Miller (born 28 September 1962) is an English television director. He has worked on the BBC television dramas ''Cardiac Arrest'', ''This Life'' and ''Luther''. He works with London-based production company Mustard Film Company. He is fathe ...

(born 1962) works as a television director. *

Ray Allen Walter Ray Allen Jr. (born July 20, 1975) is an American former professional basketball player. He played 18 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in ...

(born 1975), NBA All-Star, spent some childhood years in Saxmundham.

In fiction

Brother Eadulf has become Saxmundham's most famous international fictional character, through the best-selling

Sister Fidelma The Sister Fidelma mysteries are a series of historical mystery novels and short stories by Peter Tremayne (pseudonym of Peter Berresford Ellis) about a fictional detective who is the eponymous heroine of a series. Fidelma is both a ''dalaigh'' ( ...

mysteries by Peter Tremayne (a pseudonym of the Celtic scholar and author Peter Berresford Ellis). Brother Eadulf, as companion and assistant to Sister Fidelma, often plays a crucial part in resolving the mystery. He is introduced as originally the hereditary gerefa (magistrate) of "Seaxmund's Ham in the land of the South Folk." He attends the famous

Synod of Whitby In the Synod of Whitby in 664, King Oswiu of Northumbria ruled that his kingdom would calculate Easter and observe the monastic tonsure according to the customs of Rome rather than the customs practiced by Irish monks at Iona and its satellite ins ...

in AD 664 and joins Sister Fidelma in solving a murder of one of the delegates (''Absolution by Murder'', 1994). He has since appeared in most of the novels and some of the short stories, although the Saxmundham area has been used as a setting in only one of the novels: ''The Haunted Abbot'' (2002). Tremayne chose Saxmundham as Eadulf's place of origin because of local connections, the nearness of the town to an ancient royal burial site of the East Angles, and the historic East Anglian connections with Irish Christian missionaries. He appears in all but two of the Sister Fidelma series of mystery novels, set in 7th century

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. The series has now reached 31 published titles, appearing in a score of languages. An International Sister Fidelma Society, devoted to the author and his work, has existed for 20 years and publishes a 20-page colour magazine three times a year.Society site. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
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References

External links

Saxmundham Town Council websiteThe Saxmundham & District Community Interest CompanySaxmundham businesses websitePASTELSaxmundham Community
— Saxmundham Website
The International Sister Fidelma Society
{{authority control Market towns in Suffolk Towns in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk