Welcome to our
village………………………
The village and parish of Eyke has a
wonderful landscape and a real history. The plateau lying seaward
to the south, towards Capel, Tangham and Hatchley is part of the
ancient Sandlings, the great heath which stretched along the
coastal belt of East Anglia, maintained since Neolithic times by
the grazing of sheep. Where a tree has fallen or a pit has been
dug, the green sward is punctuated by sudden patches of brilliant
orange sands – the Red Crag – unique to this area (from the bed of
a warm sea which spread across our coastlands more than a million
years ago), or by the gravels dragged here by great ice-sheets long
afterwards. It was only in the past century that Rendlesham Forest
plantations (much of which stood in Eyke) grew into a dense and
shadowy woodland architecture………………..
Extract by Dr Steven J Plunkett MA,
PhD(Cantab) FSA , from the forward to the EYKE book, published by
the Eyke Millennium Group in the year 2000.
Eyke is first mentioned in the reign of
Henry the 2nd, when the king held Staverton Manor from
1171-1185, although it is likely that the route to the Sutton Hoo
burial site from the Royal Palace at Rendlesham passed through the
lower part of the village.
One of the oldest buildings in the village
is The Elephant and Castle pub, built as a house in the mid 1600’s
and converted to a pub by John Fuller around 1707.
Until the First World War, there were six
farms and several smallholdings as well as the associated trades.
There were shoemakers, a blacksmith, hurdlemaker, thatcher, builder
and carpenter/wheelwright, who was also the undertaker. The
windmill, whose base still stands, was busy grinding corn. The
number of farms has now dwindled to three, and there is one
smallholding. Most people now work outside the village.
But, we still have our church, playgroup,
school, shop and pub. We have a group which organises social
events, a fete in the summer, carols in the winter……