Shelley is a small 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 authority ...

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. Located on the west bank of the

River Brett The River Brett is a river in Suffolk, England. Its source is in the villages to the north of Lavenham and it flows through Hadleigh to its confluence with the River Stour via Monks Eleigh Monks Eleigh is a village and a civil parish in B ...

around three miles south of Hadleigh, it is part of Babergh district. The population of the village was only minimal at the 2011 Census and is included in the civil parish of Higham. Most of the parish is within the

Dedham Vale Dedham Vale is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the Essex-Suffolk border in east England. It comprises the area around the River Stour between Manningtree and Smallbridge Farm, 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Bures, including the ...

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of thei ...

. Other points of interest are Shelley Hall, a listed building with a protected moat, once owned by the

Partridge family ''The Partridge Family'' is an American musical sitcom starring Shirley Jones and featuring David Cassidy. Jones plays a widowed mother, and Cassidy plays the oldest of her five children, in a family who embarks on a music career. It ran from Se ...

, and Snakes Wood, which is classified as

Ancient Woodland In the United Kingdom, an ancient woodland is a woodland that has existed continuously since 1600 or before in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (or 1750 in Scotland). Planting of woodland was uncommon before those dates, so a wood present in 16 ...

and serves as a

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

. The village is first recorded before the

Norman conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...

in the S1051 charter of 1000AD in the will of Ælfflæd. 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 records the population of Shelley in 1086 to be 42 households along with 8 cattle, 32 pigs, 200 sheep, 3 other animals, 28 acres of meadow, 1,000 woodland pigs, two mills. Barker writes that there is an unusually long hedge in Shelley made up of coppiced lime trees. He writes that this follows the boundaries of remnants of nineteenth-century clearances of some of the ancient forest. Hedges of this sort are known as assart hedges. Elizabeth Gosnold Tilney, sister of Jamestown colonist and explorer

Bartholomew Gosnold Bartholomew Gosnold (1571 – 22 August 1607) was an English barrister, explorer and privateer who was instrumental in founding the Virginia Company in London and Jamestown in colonial America. He led the first recorded European expedition to ...

, is buried at All Saints' Church, Shelley. An attempt was made to use DNA from her supposed remains to confirm the identity of the body of her brother in Jamestown, but it was inconclusive as it could not be confirmed which body was hers.Bone test may solve 'US founder' mystery , UK news , The Guardian
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References

External links

Villages in Suffolk Babergh District Civil parishes in Suffolk {{suffolk-geo-stub