Cockfield 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 ...

located approximately from

Lavenham Lavenham is a village, civil parish and Wards and electoral divisions of the United Kingdom, electoral ward in the Babergh District, Babergh district, in the county of Suffolk, England. It is noted for its Lavenham Guildhall, Guildhall, Little ...

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 ...

, England. The village consists of a central point and several outlying

hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...

: Buttons Green, Colchester Green, Cross Green, Great Green, Oldhall Green, Smithwood Green and Windsor Green. Surrounded mostly by fields used for farming, and with few roads, its population was 839 in 2001, increasing to 868 at the 2011 Census. The village previously had a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

on the Long Melford-Bury St Edmunds branch line, but it was closed in 1961 as part of the

Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts, also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named ...

. Its football team, Cockfield United, play in the

Suffolk and Ipswich Football League The Suffolk and Ipswich Football League is a football competition based in Suffolk, England. The league has a total of eight divisions; the Senior Division and Divisions 1–3 for first teams, three divisions (Leagues A, B and C) for reserve tea ...

History

The present village has been inhabited for well over 2000 years. The finding of a sword (now in the Moyse Hall Museum in

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as ''Bury,'' is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk District, West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St. Edmunds an ...

) is evidence of

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

settlement, and a number of findings indicate ancient defensive ditches, known as The Warbanks. The name "Cockfield" is derived from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

"Cohha's open land", Cohha presumably being one of the first residents of the settlement. The village appeared 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 under the name of "Cothefelda" and is listed as a prosperous manor whose wealth had grown since 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 Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

. During the Middle Ages, the village became "Cokefield" and finally "Cockfield". At some stage in the eleventh and twelfth centuries a castle was constructed within the village, mostly likely on the site of Old Cockfield hall, although the location is ultimately uncertain. The De Cockfield family were in possession of the site in the twelfth century, alongside other local castles at Groton and

Lindsey Lindsey may refer to : Places Canada * Lindsey Lake, Nova Scotia England * Parts of Lindsey, one of the historic Parts of Lincolnshire and an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 ** East Lindsey, an administrative district in Lincolnshire, ...

. It was recorded in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond that the tower of Adam de Cockfield had been 'seven times twenty feet in height', and although not certain, this appears to refer to the site in Cockfield. Cockfield became a centre of

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...

ism during the 17th century. During the 19th century the parish was one of the largest and wealthiest in Suffolk and the seat of a number of prestigious rectors.

St Peter's Church

A landmark visible for a distance across the neighbouring countryside, the church of St Peter's is one of the finest of Suffolk's many village churches, with the present building mostly dating from the 14th and 15th centuries. The church's size is unusual for such a rural location, but this becomes less surprising when one considers its location between the three great medieval merchant towns of

, and

Sudbury Sudbury may refer to: Places Australia * Sudbury Reef, Queensland Canada * Greater Sudbury, Ontario ** Sudbury (federal electoral district) ** Sudbury (provincial electoral district) ** Sudbury Airport ** Sudbury Basin, a meteorite impact cra ...

. There is no record of a church in the

although a village of Cockfield's size would almost certainly have had one. The first surviving record of the parish's ecclesiastical history dates from 1190 when William de Cullum was installed as the first rector, although there is no existing record of the site prior to the building of the present church in the 14th century. The church fell under the patronage of the Abbot of St Edmundsbury until the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

when the

Spring family The Spring family is a Suffolk Landed gentry, gentry family that has been involved in the politics and economy of East Anglia since the 15th century, as well as holding large estates in Ireland from the 16th century.Joseph Jackson Howard, ‘Spri ...

, wealthy

clothiers and noblemen, took over, resulting in a close link with the region's strong

wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...

trade. From 1708 the patronage fell to

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...

who appointed a number of distinguished Fellows of the college. Rectors of St Peter's have included John Knewstub the

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

William Ludlam William Ludlam (1717–1788) was an English clergyman and mathematician. Life Born at Leicester, he was elder son of the physician Richard Ludlam (1680–1728), who practised there; Thomas Ludlam, the clergyman, was his youngest brother. (His so ...

the mathematician, and

Churchill Babington Churchill Babington (; 11 March 182112 January 1889) was an English classical scholar, archaeologist and naturalist. He served as Rector of Cockfield, Suffolk. He was a cousin of Cardale Babington. Life He was born at Rothley Temple, in ...

the archaeologist and botanist. In May 1582, an assembly of about 60 clergymen from Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire met in Cockfield Church to confer about the Prayer Book, clerical dress, and customs. The church's sizeable square flint tower dates from the 14th century and is

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...

ed almost to the top. The tower was nearly destroyed by a storm during the winter of 1774-5 and on August 2, 1775, after repairs were nearly completed, an apparent lightning strike resulted in a fire that damaged it once again. The mathematician William Ludlam, rector from 1767, installed an astronomical observatory on the tower whose filled in windows can still be seen.

The village school

In the same road as the church is the village school, serving the village and surrounding communities. Children from the ages of four to nine attend the school. Find more information a
the school website

Notable residents

* John Spring (?-1547), merchant and landowner. * John Knewstub (1544–1624), clergyman and one of the participants in the

Hampton Court Conference The Hampton Court Conference was a meeting in January 1604, convened at Hampton Court Palace, for discussion between King James I of England and representatives of the Church of England, including leading English Puritans. The conference resulted ...

of 1604 representing the

side. * William Manning (1630?–1711),

ejected minister The Great Ejection followed the Act of Uniformity 1662 in England. Several thousand Puritan ministers were forced out of their positions in the Church of England following the Stuart Restoration, Restoration of Charles II of England, Charles II ...

and Unitarian writer. *

(1717–1788), clergyman and mathematician, rector of Cockfield. *

(1821-1889),

classical scholar Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

and

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

Norah Burke Norah Burke (2 August 1907 – 1 March 1976) was a British novelist, non-fiction and travel writer famous for her descriptions of life in India during the early 20th century. She also wrote romances under the pseudonyms Andre Lamour and Paul ...

(1907-1976), novelist and travel writer.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Suffolk Babergh District Civil parishes in Suffolk