Brightwell 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the East Suffolk district, in the English county of

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

. It is located 7 miles east of

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...

and 4 miles south west of Woodbridge. Adjacent parishes include Foxhall,

Bucklesham Bucklesham is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England, a few miles east of Ipswich. History Bucklesham is derived from the old English meaning Buccel's homestead or village. The village is recorded in the D ...

Martlesham Martlesham is a village in Suffolk, England about two miles (3 km) south-west of Woodbridge, Suffolk, Woodbridge and east of Ipswich. It is often referred to as "old Martlesham" by locals in order to distinguish this old village from the ...

and Newbourne. There is the

A12 road This is a list of roads designated A12. Entries are sorted in alphabetical order by country. * A012 road (Argentina), a road around the city of Rosario * A12 motorway (Austria), a road connecting Kufstein and the German Autobahn A 93 to Lande ...

nearby. It has a church dedicated to St John the Baptist.

History

In the fifteenth century Brightwell Manor was possessed by William Curzon. His son, Sir

Robert Curson Robert Curson (1535) was an English courtier at the court of Henry VIII of England, and also that of emperor Maximilian I. He was born in Blaxhall, Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is ...

, Knt., created a Baron of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

by the Emperor Maximilian for his gallantry against the Turks, was a Yorkist conspirator and declared a traitor in 1501, although was later back in favour at the English Court. It is possible that Brightwell was forfeited by him in 1501 as he is thereafter referred to as "of

". Brightwell Hall was extensively remodelled about 1663 by Sir Samuel Barnardiston MP, leader of the Suffolk Whigs and a deputy Governor of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

. It was demolished in about 1755 but traces of the park's

parterre A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, plats, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the ...

s and garden walks still remain.

John Constable John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...

painted a landscape in oil in 1815 of Brightwell.

Population

The population at the 2011 Census was only minimal and was included in the civil parish of Foxhall.

References

Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Suffolk Coastal {{Suffolk-geo-stub