Wickham Skeith is a village and civil parish in

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, about 5 miles to the west of

Eye Eyes are organs of the visual system. They provide living organisms with vision, the ability to receive and process visual detail, as well as enabling several photo response functions that are independent of vision. Eyes detect light and conv ...

and about 3 miles east of Finningham.

History

The village was mentioned in 1086 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 ...

'' as ''Wicham'', an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

name for a house near a Roman settlement, which would apply either to

Stoke Ash Stoke Ash is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located around six miles south of Diss, in 2011 its population was 314. The village shares a parish council with neighbouring Thwaite. It is l ...

or to the Roman farm found near Wickham Skeith itself. ''Skeith'' is first recorded as part of the name in the 13th century; it is

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

for a border or boundary, and may have originally applied to the part of the village that extends from the high ground surrounding the village green along The Street, parallel to the River Dove, which is close to the parish boundary. Traditionally an agricultural village, Wickham Skeith has declined in population in recent centuries. There were 613 residents of the parish in 1851, 564 in the 1870s, 415 at the 1901 census, and 321 in

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

. The pond on the village green, called the Grimmer, was the location of one of the last " swimmings" as a test of witchcraft in the country, in July 1825. Isaac Stebbings, a pedlar aged about 67, was accused of driving two people insane by black magic. He was immersed repeatedly and floated each time; a second trial with a man of similar size was planned, but the clergyman and churchwardens prevented it. A windmill and a steam mill were next to the green; on 13 January 1890, the boiler of the steam mill exploded and 6-year-old Edward Rosier was struck on the head by a flying brick and died on 5 February.

Buildings

St Andrew's Church dates to the 14th century, with a Decorated west tower and the remainder in the later

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

style, and was restored in 1858. The nave and chancel windows may be by master mason Hawes of Occold (''fl.'' 1410–40). A modern etched glass window is dated 1998, by Walter Wilson. Wickham Hall was rebuilt as a rectory in 1846. The village hall was built in 1909 as a men's reading room. The Swan Inn public house, originally built in the 15th century, closed in 1967.

Notable residents

Film sound recordist Peter Handford and his wife the actress

Helen Fraser Helen Fraser may refer to: * Helen Fraser (actress) (born 1942), English actress * Helen Fraser (executive) (born 1949), British executive and businesswoman * Helen Fraser (feminist) Helen Miller Fraser, later Moyes (14 September 1881 – 2 De ...

lived in Wickham Skeith until his death.

References

External links

*
Village website
{{Authority control Mid Suffolk District Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk