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,  penniewalker1@tiscali.co.uk
or Mary Cufley on 01379 586238, roger.cufley@googlemail.com

On May Bank Holiday we held a magnificent 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 2010

Tuesday 26 January	7.30pm, Sancroft Hall	Richard Gibson is coming to give us an illustrated talk on the 100th Bomb Group and the control tower at Thorpe Abbotts airfield in the Second World War. He has given this talk many times, including in the USA, and is a real enthusiast, so it should be very interesting. Do hope you can come, and tell your friends and neighbours about it too, as all will be welcome
Tuesday 23 February	7.30pm, Sancroft Hall	An informal meeting and coffee evening to discuss the year ahead for the History Group, and to report on any new photos, email contacts from people researching their Fressingfield ancestors, and any research on our local history
Tuesday 30 March	7.30pm, Sancroft Hall	AGM and the election of a new Chair and Secretary

 

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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 or Mary, 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