Waldringfield is a village and civil parish in the

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

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. It is situated on the bank of the River Deben within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, south of the town of

Woodbridge Woodbridge may refer to: Places Australia *Woodbridge, Western Australia formerly called ''West Midland'' *Woodbridge, Tasmania Canada *Woodbridge, Ontario England *Woodbridge, Suffolk, the location of ** Woodbridge (UK Parliament constituency ...

and east of the

county town In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a county town is the most important town or city in a county. It is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county and the place where the county's members of Parliament are elect ...

of Ipswich. All Saints' Church dates from the 14th century. Restored in the 19th century, it is a grade II* listed building. Waldringfield Heath, between the village and Martlesham on the edge of Ipswich, is the site of Waldringfield Golf Club. It also has a yacht club called Waldringfield Yacht Club.

History

The name Waldringfield is derived from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

words meaning 'open land of the family or followers of a man called Waldhere'. The length of human habitation at Waldringfield is unknown but Iron Age finds such as pottery shards from the 1st century BC have been found locally. Record of the settlement is found in the Domesday Book of 1086 under the name 'Waldingafelda' along with the name 'Minima Waldringafelda' (Lesser Waldringfield). The village had an industrial heyday from about 1860 to 1907. First, until about 1895, coprolite was dug up locally, washed and sifted on the beach and shipped by barge to be processed in factories in Ipswich, as part of the early fertiliser industry. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, a cement-making industry used mud from the river mixed with chalk brought in by barge from the

Medway Medway is a unitary authority district and conurbation in Kent, South East England. It had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with the Borough of Gillingham to for ...

. Served by one hundred barges a month and employing twelve 'bottleneck' kilns, the industry survived until 1907. The kilns were demolished in 1912.

References

{{authority control Villages in Suffolk Suffolk Coastal Civil parishes in Suffolk