Great Finborough 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 authorit ...

in the

Mid Suffolk Mid Suffolk is a local government district in Suffolk, England. Its council was based in Needham Market until late 2017, and is currently sharing offices with the Suffolk County Council in Ipswich. The largest town of Mid Suffolk is Stowmarket. ...

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 ...

, England; about south west of

Stowmarket Stowmarket ( ) is a market town in Suffolk, England,OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton A2 edition. Publishing Date:2008. on the busy A14 trunk road between Bury St Edm ...

and near one of the sources of the

River Gipping The River Gipping is the source river for the River Orwell in the county of Suffolk in East Anglia, England, which is named from the village of Gipping, and which gave its name to the former Gipping Rural District. The name is unrelated to t ...

. It has two schools, a pub and an active church. In 2001 the parish had a population of 755, increasing to 808 at the 2011 Census.

Public Transport

Route 461

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

service operated by Beeston's connects Finborough with

Sudbury Sudbury may refer to: Places Australia * Sudbury Reef, Queensland Canada * Greater Sudbury, Ontario (official name; the city continues to be known simply as Sudbury for most purposes) ** Sudbury (electoral district), one of the city's federal el ...

Bildeston Bildeston is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district of Suffolk, England. Located around north of Hadleigh, in 2005 it had a population of 960, increasing to 1,054 at the 2011 Census. History According to Eilert Ekwall the meaning o ...

and Stowmarket on Tuesday and Thursday only.

Schools

Great Finborough has a primary school, Great Finborough CEVC Primary School, founded in 1873. Two new classrooms were added to the original buildings in 2000. The school's catchment area includes Great Finborough and the neighbouring village of Buxhall; places are offered first to children from the two villages and then to others from beyond the catchment area up to the school's intake limit. The primary school is a feeder for Stowmarket High School, to which pupils transfer at the age of 11. The independent school

Finborough School Finborough School is a co-educational independent school. It is situated in and around Finborough Hall, in the village of Great Finborough, near Stowmarket, Suffolk, England. History The original school, named St. George's School, was fou ...

is also located in the village. About 250 pupils attend the school, which includes Nursery, Pre-Prep, Prep School, Senior School and Sixth Form.

Religion

St Andrew's Church is the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

church. The current church is Victorian, apart from the Tudor porch, and the spire nearly reaches 300 ft. There has been a place of worship on the site for over 1000 years and in 1086 the church as well as

Finborough Hall Finborough Hall is a Grade II listedHistoric England.St Georges School, Finborough Hall. National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 8 March 2016. stucco-faced Tuscan-style country house in Great Finborough, Suffolk, England. The grounds we ...

were recorded 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 ...

. There was also a

Congregational Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...

chapel built in 1862 which is now a private residence.

History

Inside St Andrew's Church the side chapel is filled with monuments dedicated to the Wollaston family who played a big part in the Finborough Estate. They owned the estate for a century and there are monuments dedicated to nearly all the family members. The Pettiward family also played a big role: they took control of the estate after the Wollastons and owned it until the mid 1930s. The connection with the Pettiward family meant that it gave its name to

Finborough Road Earl's Court is a district of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, bordering the rail tracks of the West London line and District line that separate it from the ancient borough of Fulham to the west, the ...

Earls Court Earl's Court is a district of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, bordering the rail tracks of the West London line and District line that separate it from the ancient borough of Fulham to the west, the ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, developed as part of the

Pettiward Estate The Pettiward Estate is a privately owned set of reversions in the far edge of two inner boroughs of south-west London, England, now owned by a family trust of the family, who were from 1794 until 1935 of Finborough Hall, Suffolk. The family over ...

and later the

Finborough Theatre The Finborough Theatre is a fifty-seat theatre in the West Brompton area of London (part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea) under artistic director Neil McPherson. The theatre presents new British writing, as well as UK and world pr ...

Bog Race

Since 1897 each Easter Monday two teams of six men from

Haughley Haughley is a village and civil parish in the English county of Suffolk, about two miles from Stowmarket in the Mid Suffolk District. The village is located miles northwest of the town of Stowmarket, overlooking the Gipping valley, next to the ...

and Great Finborough race a mile across boggy fields from Boyton Hall to The Chestnut Horse pub in Finborough. The origin of the race is believed to come from a group of men who were faced with being sacked from their jobs at nearby Boyton Hall for drunkenness had to fight it out for the contract with a rival group of workers from Haughley. The farmer from Boyton Hall is believed to have thrown the contract in the air and let the two teams compete to see who could get it across the fields to the pub first. The race starts at the pub, The Chestnut Horse, where the teams from Haughley and Great Finborough get considerably drunk and are taken to a nearby farm, Boyton Hall, where they have to race over the fields, about a mile, to get to the pub with the scroll. The first man at the pub with the scroll wins and his village is declared the winner.

Notable people

William Skrene William Skrene (c. 1357/8–1419/20) was an Irish-born barrister and judge who spent most of his adult life in England, where he became King's Serjeant and a judge of assize. He also served briefly as Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in 1395-7 ...

(–1421), a prominent judge who became Lord of the Manor of Great Finborough in circa 1390. *

John Green Crosse John Green Crosse, FRCS, FRS (6 September 1790 – 9 June 1850) was a well-known English surgeon of his day, at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. After completing his apprenticeship in Stowmarket, he studied at St. George's Hospital and at th ...

(1790–1850), surgeon, was born at Boyton Hall, near Great Finborough. * William Wollaston I (1659–1724), Enlightenment philosopher and author of '' The Religion of Nature Delineated'', lived at

. * William Wollaston II (1693-1757),

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for

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 ...

1733–1734 * William Wollaston III 1731-1797,

for

1768–1784 *The

Pettiward family The Pettiward Family were a landed family prominent in Putney and Great Finborough, Suffolk who control the Pettiward Estate in Earl's Court, London. John Pettiward In 1630 John Pettiward married Sarah White daughter and heiress of Henry White of ...

reside at

. *

John Peel John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey (DJ) and radio presenter. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly fr ...

(1939–2004), radio broadcaster, lived in a cottage nicknamed "Peel Acres" in the village from the 1970s, in which many of his shows were produced. His body was buried in the graveyard of St Andrew's Church.

References

Bibliography

* William White, ''History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Suffolk, and the Towns Near Its Borders'' (1844).

External links

Great Finborough

Stowmarket Sport (Grassroots coverage of sports, clubs and teams in a three-mile radius of Stowmarket)
{{authority control Villages in Suffolk Mid Suffolk District Civil parishes in Suffolk