'Suffolk' (
pronounced ) is a large
historic and modern
non-metropolitan county in
East Anglia,
England. It has borders with
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, at and other important towns include
Lowestoft and
Bury St Edmunds.
Felixstowe is one of the largest
container ports in Europe.
The county is low-lying with few hills, and is largely
wetland habitat and
arable land with the
wetlands of
The Broads in the North, and the
Suffolk Coast and Heaths is an
Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
History
Main articles: History of Suffolk
Suffolk was part of the
kingdom of East Anglia which was settled by the
Angles in the 5th century.
Suffolk was divided into separate
Quarter Sessions divisions. These were originally four in number, reduced to two in 1860: the eastern division being administered from
Ipswich and the western from
Bury St Edmunds. The two divisions were made separate administrative counties as
East Suffolk and
West Suffolk under the
Local Government Act 1888, with Ipswich becoming a
county borough.
Under the
Local Government Act 1972, East Suffolk, West Suffolk and Ipswich were merged to form a unified county of Suffolk on
April 1,
1974. This was divided into several
local government districts:
Babergh,
Forest Heath,
Ipswich,
Mid Suffolk,
St. Edmundsbury,
Suffolk Coastal,
Waveney. This also saw a further part of land near
Great Yarmouth become part of Norfolk. As introduced into Parliament, the Local Government Bill would have included
Newmarket and
Haverhill into Cambridgeshire, with it being compensated by the inclusion of
Colchester from
Essex: these proposals were ultimately decided against.
The
Department for Communities and Local Government is currently considering whether
Ipswich Borough Council should become a new unitary authority.
[1][2]
West Suffolk is, like nearby
East Cambridgeshire, renowned for
archaeological findings from the
Stone Age, the
Bronze Age and the
Iron Age. Bronze Age artefacts have been found in the area between
Mildenhall and
West Row, in
Eriswell and in
Lakenheath[3].
Many bronze objects, such as swords, spear-heads, arrows, axes,
palstaves, knives, daggers, rapiers, armour, decorative equipment (in particular for horses) and fragments of sheet bronze, are entrusted to the Moyse's Hall Museum in
Bury St Edmunds. Other finds include traces of
cremations and
barrows.
Economy
The majority of
agriculture in Suffolk is either arable or mixed. Farm sizes vary from anything around 80 acres to over 8,000. Soil types vary from heavy clays through to light sands. Crops grown include winter wheat, winter barley, sugar beet, oil seed rape, winter and spring beans and linseed, although smaller areas of rye and oats can be found in lighter areas along with a variety of vegetables.
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Suffolk at current basic prices
published (pp.240-253) by ''Office for National Statistics'' with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.
| Year | Regional Gross Value Added[4] | Agriculture[5] | Industry[6] | Services[7] |
|---|
| 1995 | '7,113' | 391 | 2,449 | 4,273 |
| 2000 | '8,096' | 259 | 2,589 | 5,248 |
| 2003 | '9,456' | 270 | 2,602 | 6,583 |
:''See also: ''
Well-known companies in Suffolk are
Greene King and
Branston Pickle in Bury St Edmunds.
Birds Eye have their largest UK factory in Lowestoft, where all their meat products and frozen vegetables come from.
Huntley & Palmers biscuit company are now in Sudbury. The UK
horse racing industry is based in Newmarket. There are two
USAF bases in the west of the county close to the A11.
Sizewell B nuclear power station is at
Sizewell on the coast near
Leiston.
Bernard Matthews have some processing units in the county, specifically
Holton.
Felixstowe is an important port.
Geology, landscape and ecology
Much of Suffolk is low-lying on
Eocene sand and
clays. These rocks are relatively
unresistant and on the coast are
eroded rapidly.
Coastal defences have been used to protect several towns, but several cliff-top houses have been lost to coastal erosion in the past.
The west of the county lies on more resistant
Cretaceous Chalk. This chalk is the north-eastern extreme of the
Southern England Chalk Formation that stretches from
Dorset in the south west to
Dover in the south east. The Chalk is less easily eroded so forms the only significant hills in the county. The highest point of the county is
Great Wood Hill, the highest point of the
Newmarket Ridge, near the village of Rede which reaches 128
m (420
ft).
Demographics
The
Census 2001 Suffolk recorded a
population of 668,548. Between 1981 and 2001 the population of the county grew by 13%, with the district of
Mid Suffolk growing fastest at 25%. The population growth is due largely to
migration rather than natural increase. There is a very low population between the ages of 15 and 29 as the county has few large towns and institutions of higher education, though the 15-to-29 population in Ipswich is average. There is a larger population over the age of 35, and a larger than average retired population.
Most English counties have nicknames for people from that county, such as a
Tyke from
Yorkshire and a
Yellowbelly from
Lincolnshire; the traditional nickname for people from Suffolk is 'Suffolk Fair-Maids', or 'Silly Suffolk', referring respectively to the supposed beauty of its female inhabitants in the Middle Ages, and to the long history of Christianity in the county and its many fine churches (from Anglo-Saxon ''selige'', originally meaning holy).
Cities, towns and villages
The agreed-upon number of established communities in Suffolk varies greatly because of the large number of the all but non-existent hamlets which may consist of just a single farm and a deconsecrated church: remnants of wealthy communities, some dating back to the early days of the Christian era. Suffolk encompasses one of the most ancient regions of the UK: A monastery in
Bury St. Edmunds founded in 630AD, plotting of
Magna Carta in 1215; the oldest documented structural element of a still inhabited dwelling in Britain found in
Clare.
This comparatively recent evidence is but a coda to the widespread settlement in the region shown by earlier archaeological evidence of Mesolithic man as far back as c.7000BC, (
Grimes Graves, Norfolk - a 5000 y/o flint mine) with Roman settlements
Lakenheath,
Long Melford, later Bronze and Saxon settlements.
Sutton Hoo: burial ground of the Anglo-Saxon pagan kings of East Anglia.
:''For a full list of settlements see the
List of places in Suffolk.''
Notable people from Suffolk
:''See also: ''
★
Robert Bloomfield - poet
★
Ronald Blythe - writer and editor
★
Benjamin Britten - composer
★
Brian Eno- musician, record producer
★
Colin Ward - anarchist author and editor
★
Brian Cant - television presenter
★
John Constable - painter
★
Bernie Ecclestone - motor racing magnate
★
St Edmund - King of East Anglia and Christian martyr
★
Kieron Dyer - footballer
★
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson - first qualified female doctor and first woman mayor in the UK
★
Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett - Suffragette
★
Ralph Fiennes - actor
★
Dani Filth - singer
★
Robert FitzRoy - captain of ''
HMS Beagle''
★
Thomas Gainsborough - painter
★
Bishop Herbert de Losinga
★
Matthew Hopkins - witchfinder
★
Bob Hoskins - actor
★
John Lydgate Author, poet and Benedictine monk
★
John Peel - DJ, radio presenter
★
Sue Ryder - charity leader
★
Thomas Seckford - official at the court of
Queen Elizabeth I
★
Charlie Simpson - singer, guitairist
★
Matthew Upson - footballer
★
Thomas Cardinal Wolsey - former cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
★
Ian Wright - travel writer
Education
Primary and Secondary
''See also
List of schools in Suffolk''
Suffolk has a
comprehensive education system with fourteen
independent schools. Unusually for the UK, most of Suffolk has a 3-tier school system in place with
Primary Schools (ages 5-9),
Middle Schools (ages 9-13) and Upper Schools (ages 3-16). However, a 2006 Suffolk County Council study has concluded that Suffolk should move to the 2-tier school system used in the majority of the UK.
[8] The exception to this is in the Ipswich district and some in the districts of Suffolk Coastal, Mid Suffolk, and Babergh where the more common have 11-16 age schools are in place. All of the county's Upper schools have a
sixth form as there are no specific sixth form colleges (though most
further education colleges in the county offer
A-level courses). In terms of school population, Suffolk's individual schools are large with the Ipswich district with the largest school population and Forest Heath the smallest, with just two schools.
Tertiary
Suffolk is one of the few counties in England not to contain a
University campus. This is due to change in September
2007 with the establishment of
University Campus Suffolk, a collaboration between the
University of Essex, the
University of East Anglia, partner colleges and local government.
Trivia
The
Rendlesham Forest Incident is the name given to a series of reported sightings of unexplained lights and objects in the sky, and the alleged landing of an extraterrestrial spacecraft, in December 1980, in the vicinity of Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England.
A TV series about a British antiques dealer,
Lovejoy, was filmed in various locations in Suffolk
[1].
The Series
Space Cadets was Also filmed in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk although the producers pretended that they were in Russia
See also
★
List of places of interest in Suffolk
References
1. Unitary Ipswich - Ipswich's bid for unitary status
2. Communities and Local Government - Proposals for future unitary structures: Stakeholder consultation
3. Fenland survey : an essay in landscape and persistence / David Hall and John Coles, , David, Hall, London; English Heritage, , ISBN 1-85074-477-7 , p. 81-88
4. Components may not sum to totals due to rounding
5. includes hunting and forestry
6. includes energy and construction
7. includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured
8. "Middle Schools Under Threat" Suffolk Free Press - Dec 2006
External links
★
Suffolk Observatory - Suffolk's Vital Statistics
★
Promoting Suffolk
★
Tourism in Suffolk
★
Suffolk County Council
★
BBC Suffolk
★
1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: Suffolk
★
Visit Suffolk Coast
★
Suffolk Churches
★
Photos of Suffolk's agriculture
★
Suffolk local search
★
Pronunciation of Suffolk place names
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