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There is archaeological evidence that the land upon which Stowmarket
stands has been continuously inhabited since at least the Roman
times about two thousand years ago. A Roman villa alongside some
Anglo-Saxon roundhouses was discovered near Sheepcote Hall Farm
when the Cedars Park Estate was being developed; a Roman kiln was
also found on the Elizabeth Way site. There have also been some
fragmentary signs of Roman occupation nearer the town centre. One
wonders if they had to deal with Boudicca and her Iceni warriors
at any time during their stay. There is no knowledge of what the
name of this encampment was although it is reckoned to be close
to the Roman camp of Sito Magus which was known to be located in
roughly the centre of what was to become the County of Suffolk.
When the Romans left, the Anglo-Saxon dominance rose (or more correctly
for this region it was just the Angles) where the true Angleish
[English] language was born. They divided the bulbous part of Britain
facing the North Sea now known as East Anglia into two administrative
sections: the Nord-fulk and Sud-fulk. It was these people who further
divided the land into ‘hundreds’, where each would contain
roughly one hundred settlements. The Hundred of ‘Stow,’
located roughly in the centre of the county, means the ‘place’
or ‘site’ of significance. After a relatively peaceful
period, the country was invaded by the Danes and there has been
evidence unearthed in the Danescourt area to suggest that a Danish
camp was situated there. However, on or around that area now occupied
by Danescourt Avenue, Beaumont Way and Finborough Road, even earlier
signs of human occupation were discovered, such as flint axes and
arrow heads from the Palaeolithic period of prehistory.
The Anglo-Saxons did eventually join forces and ousted the Danes
and slowly united the whole country. However, this period was brought
to a close in 1066 when the Normans arrived and quickly stamped
their mark on everything. When the Normans took over this area they
inherited the sites of Tornei, Ciltuna and Ultun, which would later
evolve into Thorney, Chilton and Uptown or Upland.
It is interesting to note that the site occupied by the Houses of
Parliament in London is also on the site of the area anciently known
as Thorney, which also has a ‘Tot Hill'. It is suggested that
it refers to Isle of Thorns and related to an area of higher land
surrounded by marshland and bog which was a crossing point on the
Thames. No-one could consider the Gipping or the Ratt as being on
a par with the Thames, but the general layout around these rivers
is very marshy close to the town and even proved to be a problem
for the Victorian engineers when laying the railway tracks into
the town in the 1840’s, as well as the construction company
putting up the flyover for the A45 (A14) Stowmarket by-pass in 1975.
The Normans created many manors to further sub-divide the settlements
so that they could allocate land to Norman gentry, to dispossess
the previous Anglo-Saxon landowners. Thus Thorney was split into
the manors of Thorney Leesons, Thorney Mumpliers with Brasiers,
Thorney Campsey, Thorney Columbers and Thorney Hall. It was the
latter Thorney Hall that was mentioned as having a market in the
Domesday Book of 1086. It was the market for the hundred of Stow
which evolved into the Stow-Market (as opposed to the Hartismere
Market or any of the hundreds etc.). There is still a Columbyne
(Columbers) Hall and a Brasiers Hall locally to give clues as to
where some of the other manors where. The site of the Thorney Hall
was situated between the railway station and the Creeting Road roughly
on the site of the Mid Suffolk District Council’s Creeting
Road Depot. After the coming of the railway in 1846, the Hall, which
had been the residence of the King’s Bailiff in the 12th century,
was soon abandoned as a residence and converted into one of the
many maltings that dominated the town throughout the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, but has long since been demolished.
Stowmarket eventually separated itself from the Thorney Hall side
of the River Gipping and evolved into the triangular shaped piece
of land wedged between the Ratt and the Gipping, with Stowupland
starting at the Pickerel Bridge in Stowupand Street and Combs starting
at Boulters Bridge in Ipswich Road. This set-up lasted until the
1930’s, when the town boundaries were changed to incorporate
Newton Road and Creeting Road areas and also the Combs Ford and
Poplar Hill areas. Up until then Stowmarket people had considered
everyone from ‘over the river’ as ‘foreigners’.
Throughout the Mediaeval period Stowmarket has very little written
about it, but there have been a few buildings identified as being
built in the fourteenth century. David Stewarts’ Solicitors
next to the traffic lights in the Market Place has an unusual heavily-sooted,
scissor-braced roof that dates from the middle of the 1300’s
and the empty building between the Queens Head and the Authentic
Restaurant (ex BabyTime) dates from about 1400. A mediaeval moated
site was found in the precincts of the ICI land during redevelopment
work and became the site of an archaeological dig. Edward III granted
the Town a market charter in July 1347 and the market continues
to serve local people every Thursday and Saturday in the Market
Place. The mediaeval heart of Stowmarket lies around the parish
church of St. Peter and St. Mary and in the area leading down to
the riverbank. The Tudor period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
saw a large increase in building in the town and despite losing
several significant buildings in the developments of the 1960’s,
many of these are still in existence, although often hidden behind
Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian façades. Today the town
has one hundred and thirty-one buildings listed by the Department
of National Heritage as buildings of ‘special architectural
or historic interest’ and one, the parish church, is classified
as being of ‘exceptional interest’. The Town Centre
and a large area around it is now designated as a Conservation Area
to help conserve those buildings that remain.
The seventeenth century was the period of the English Civil War
and although no battles took place in this area, Stowmarket did
have a controversial vicar in Thomas Young. He had been John Milton’s
tutor and it is believed the poet visited his old master on more
than one occasion at his Vicarage, which is currently the home of
the Town Council Offices, Citizens Advice Bureau and the Thorntree
Rooms. Young opposed many traditions of the established church and
had to flee to Germany for several years because of his extremist
views. He was also against Cromwell’s ‘Commonwealth’
and favoured the monarchy and the stratified society that Cromwell
tried to bring down.
Following this period the town seems to have been in decline. It
was known for woollens, bombazines and stuffs, but during the middle
of the 1700’s the malting industry began to flourish and Stowmarket
quickly became one of the largest malt-producing towns in the country;
at its peak it had seventeen large maltings spread around the town
and was second only to Burton-on-Trent for its output.
In 1793 the River Gipping was made navigable to the tidal port of
Ipswich and this helped to regenerate the town’s prosperity.
Goods were sent down the river by barge, around the coast and up
the Thames to London and in return most of the capital’s horse
manure problem was sent by barges back up the Gipping so that it
could be spread on the land as fertiliser. Ironically, of the many
merchants this new-found trading boom attracted, one was the Prentice
family who went on to produce an ‘artificial manure’
as well as various other chemical processes. Through the nineteenth
century the maltings and chemical industries came to dominate the
town and set the mould for its future development.
It was one of these chemical processes, the production of guncotton,
which was to have a devastating effect on the town. On August 11th
1871, an explosion rocked the factory that was situated between
the river and the railway line at the end of the Lime Tree Place
and Bridge Street area of town. A second, larger explosion happened
a short while later, just after two of the Prentice family arrived
to see the extent of the damage and they were unfortunately killed,
along with over twenty other people, some of whom were barely more
than children. This event became headline news and was reported
around the world. It also had the macabre distinction of attracting
a large crowd of sightseers who arrived by train, as well as horse-drawn
coaches, from many miles around to see the terrible damage done
to the town. The Church windows were blown in, as were those of
Combs church. The walls of the church tower were also damaged, but
the true extent of this damage was not fully realized until the
repair work of the 1990’s.
In the early years of the nineteenth century James Woods set up
his Iron Foundry close to the centre of the town. He gradually bought
up the gardens and premises behind shops and houses on one side
of Bury Street and built workshops, foundries and ancilliary buildings
that covered a wide area from behind the Baldwin’s store in
Tavern Street, stretching up to behind Simpson’s in Bury Street.
This works continued on that site for about one hundred years until
taken over by the Tibbenham family, when it was moved to the Prentice
Road site and became the Suffolk Iron Foundry (SIF) along the river
and railway. For most of the twentieth century SIF became famous
for its lawnmowers and mangles as well as SIFbronze welding rods
and equipment. This business has been depicted on the parapets of
one of the new bridges recently built over the River Gipping opposite
Hollingsworth Road along Gipping Way. SIF became Atco-Qualcast and
continued making lawnmowers; currently it is a part of the Bosch
Group whose products continue to be made in Stowmarket today. The
other bridge that links the town with the Cedars Park development
(Navigation Approach) depicts the history of the Navigation, showing
the horse-drawn barges and the maltings along the towpath etc.
Mention has already been made about the coming of the railway in
1846. This was when the Rev. A.G.H. Hollingsworth had just produced
his book about the town’s history based on some of the old
papers found in the ancient church chests. The railway brought about
the decline and eventual death of the Navigation, but added to the
general prosperity of the town by making better links with the outside
world. Stowmarket has also benefitted greatly by the old A45 (A14)
highway for the same reasons.
Into the twentieth century, the Prentice’s Guncotton and Chemical
works became Necol, a branch of Nobel Chemicals, which then evolved
into Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and which is known by the
world famous brands such as Dulux for home decorating as well as
car-paint finishes for many of the top brands of cars.
The popular traditional Thursday and Saturday markets that have
been at the heart of the town for centuries are today supplemented
by monthly Farmers’ Markets and occasional Continental and
specialist markets. As well as being a market town, Stowmarket still
has a strong manufacturing and industrial presence and even today
it has kept a link with the past, as the malt for the centre of
every Malteser comes from the Muntons factory in Stowmarket - another
major employer within the Town.
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