Chilton is a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

on the eastern outskirts of

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 e ...

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 L ...

, England. Once a normal village, Chilton today consists of scattered clusters of housing and an isolated

Church of St Mary Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

, and is a prime example of a

deserted medieval village In the United Kingdom, a deserted medieval village (DMV) is a former settlement which was abandoned during the Middle Ages, typically leaving no trace apart from earthworks or cropmarks. If there are fewer than three inhabited houses the conv ...

History

Chilton's history dates back to the

British Iron Age The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric ...

, when it was founded as a Celtic agricultural settlement. The name Chilton is Old English for "Child's Town". When 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 ...

was produced in 1086,

Robert Malet Robert Malet (c. 1050 – by 1130) was a Norman- English baron and a close advisor of Henry I. Early life Malet was the son of William Malet, and inherited his father's great honour of Eye in 1071. This made him one of the dozen or so grea ...

(a member of

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, ...

's court) was the village's

tenant-in-chief In medieval and early modern Europe, the term ''tenant-in-chief'' (or ''vassal-in-chief'') denoted a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as opp ...

. It is unclear why the village was abandoned, though it is speculated that it may have been caused by the Black Death, the

enclosure Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or " common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...

of Chilton Hall's deer park, or agricultural depression.A Brief History of Chilton
Chilton Parish Council Until the 1960s a single house remained standing adjacent to the church. Although the church is redundant, services are still held three times a year. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

an airfield was built largely within the parish. Initially called Airfield 174, it was later renamed RAF Sudbury. It was completed in 1943 and handed over to the

USAAF The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

on 23 March 1944. With three runways, the airfield was home to the USAAF 486th Bomber Group (now evolved into the 486th Air Expeditionary Wing). The

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

s are now used largely for grain storage. The hall, previously home to the grandmother of Robert Walpole (the first

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

of Great Britain), is today home to Lord Hart of Chilton.

References

External links

Parish Council website

External links

{{authority control Villages in Suffolk Babergh District Former populated places in Suffolk Sudbury, Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Deserted medieval villages in England