The Fressingfield Local History and Archive Group was founded in 2006 and has a strong and enthusiastic membership.  The group has monthly meetings, generally the last Tuesday of the month and organises visits, walks and exhibitions.  Members are collecting and archiving photographs and facts about the village and welcome anything you may have.  They would copy your pictures and documents and return them.
Contact Pennie Walker on 01379 588270 or penniewalker1@tiscali.co.uk   

Click for March 2008 AGM minutes

We are currently planning for the May Bank Holiday celebration of the 500th anniversary of our guildhall, the Fox and Goose, with 1509, Fressingfield's Tudor Story.  Click on logo for full details. 

Group Meetings for 2009

Friday 20th February	2-5pm, 6-8pm, Sancroft Hall	1509 Costume Workshop
Thursday 12th March	7.30pm, Sancroft Hall	1509 event meeting
Tuesday 31st March	7.30pm, Sancroft Hall	FLHAG AGM, refreshments
Thursday 23rd April	7.30pm, Sancroft Hall	1509 event meeting
Friday 1st, Sat 2nd & Sun 3rd May	Around centre of village	1509 event. Fressingfield's Tudor story
Tuesday 26th May	Meet 7pm, Sancroft Hall	Village history walk, led by Peter Vincent
Tuesday 30th June		Speaker/outing TBA
Tuesday 28th July	7.30pm, Sancroft Hall	The Tudor Housing Revolution, speaker - John Walker
Sat 12th & Sun 13th September	Fressingfield School	Exhibition of Fressingfield records on loan from the Record Office, display of family trees
Tuesday 29th September	7.30pm, Sancroft Hall	TBA
Tuesday 27th October	7.30pm, Sancroft Hall	TBA
Thursday 10th December	7.30pm, Sancroft Hall	Christmas event - The Bumpstead Boys present Ruby and her Horses - a true life rural narrative with stories, photographs, humour and music. Festive refreshments

 

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There are three publications of the history of Fressingfield currently for sale:-

Looking Back at Fressingfield which details aspects of village life before 1750 and from 1851 to 1951                                                            £5.00

A Century of a Suffolk Village covering 1750 to 1851               £4.00

Fifty Years of Fressingfield 1952 - 2002                                £5.50

Copies are available by contacting Pennie, details above.  These are subject to P & P, usually about £2.

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Fressingfield covers 4,618 acres. It is one of Suffolk’s largest parishes - only fifteen, out of more than five hundred, being larger. A population peak was reached in 1851 when the census recorded 1,491: five hundred more than at present.

For centuries the prosperity or otherwise of the parish has reflected its dependence upon agricultural policy - itself dictated by external pressures: wars, particularly the Napoleonic, Crimean and the two World Wars - providing impetus; whilst, typically, depression reigned in between periods of hostility and more definitely so from the late 1870s until well into the twentieth century due to the influx of cheap American grain.

Agriculture remains dominant - but only as far as land use is concerned. Fressingfield has an impressive number of medieval moats - drainage, a ready supply of water and fish and even the demands of fashion (rather than defence) provide one or more of the reasons. Whittingham Hall also has the remains of a medieval deer park.

The Manor of Whittingham was granted a Market in 1267. This was transferred to the centre of the village by 1550.

More village history pages