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Mendham, Suffolk

Civil parishes in SuffolkMid Suffolk DistrictSuffolk geography stubsVillages in Suffolk
Mendham Church of All Saints
Mendham Church of All Saints

Mendham is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located on the east bank of the River Waveney around a mile east of Harleston, the parish includes the hamlets of Withersdale Street. The Mendham Marshes are also within the parish boundaries. All Saints Church is a medieval church, Grade I listed, that was restored in the 1860s. It is now one of six churches in the Sancroft Benefice. The village of Mendham came under Mendham Priory until the dissolution of the monasteries. Mendham Priory then became a private house. The present house is an early 19th century neo-classical mansion, with a Doric style porch, built for Alexander Adair. The Priory was later the home of the Dimmock family.Until the 19th century, around 25% of the parish fell in Norfolk and 75% in Suffolk.Mendham's most famous son, born to a local miller, was Sir Alfred James Munnings KCVO, PRA (8 October 1878 – 17 July 1959), known as one of England's finest painters of horses, and as an outspoken enemy of Modernism. An extract of one of his paintings, featuring gypsy Charlotte Gray leading a pony, has been incorporated into the Mendham village sign. Her husband Frederick or 'Nobby' Gray was one of Alfred's closest friends and a model in some of his paintings. Both Nobby and Charlotte are buried in All Saints churchyard in Mendham. Two-time world champion darts player Peter Wright also lives in Mendham.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Mendham, Suffolk (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Mendham, Suffolk
Withersdale Road, Mid Suffolk

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Wikipedia: Mendham, SuffolkContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 52.397669 ° E 1.337629 °
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Address

Withersdale Road

Withersdale Road
IP20 0NJ Mid Suffolk
England, United Kingdom
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Mendham Church of All Saints
Mendham Church of All Saints
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Nearby Places

Withersdale Street

The village of Withersdale Street is located within the rural parish of Mendham, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, in the Waveney Valley. The village is predominantly a ribbon development, along the B1123, from Harleston to Halesworth. To the west of the village lies Mendham Priory, an early 19th century neo-classical mansion, with a Doric style porch, whilst to the east, the Red House, a later Georgian red brick building also mentioned by Pevsner, faces towards the new village hall and overlooks the playing field. The original Mendham Priory was founded in the middle of the 12th Century and fell into decay. There is still a mound of flint relating to the medieval Cluniac Priory of St Mary on the marshes beside the River Waveney, to the north of the present Mendham Priory. However, much of the building material of the original Priory was removed and used in the surrounding parishes. This was located at a different site to the present house called Mendham Priory. Much of this material however can be found in the walled garden and in the Lodge of the present building. The estate was purchased in 1824 by Alexander Adair and by the mid-1870s Mendham Priory was home to the Dimmock family and formed the centre of a working estate. The Dimmock family remained at Mendham Priory well into the 20th Century. Mendham Priory also survived a nearby bomb blast during the Second World War which is said to have lifted the entire roof of the conservatory without breaking a single pane of glass. Each village had its own brickworks - Withersdale is no exception. Kiln House has its own kiln in the back garden and there is a clay pit at the top of Pegg's Hill, overlooking the village from the south. Other bricks have been used in local houses from nearby villages. St Cross South Elmham had its own brickworks, with the mark of a cross within the face of the brick, only revealed now when a wall is knocked down and the structure of the brick revealed. Grange Lodge was the old police station, whilst the Old Post House originally had petrol pumps outside. Withersdale Cross was once the village pub, the Golden Cross, the sign for which can still be seen in the roof tiles. This also housed Withersdale Ceramics, founded by John and Fiona Cutting in the early 1970s, examples of whose tiles in clock faces and pot stands still appear in local auctions or houses within the village. The designs were screen printed on to the tiles and then hand painted, often by people from the village. In November 2009, the new village hall was opened by Rebecca Knight from OperaBabes, having been built on land to the east of the village. It was the culmination of funding from, amongst others, Suffolk County Council, Mid Suffolk District Council, Suffolk Environmental Trust, Adnams, the Clothworkers' Foundation, Garfield Weston, the Rank Foundation and the Suffolk Foundation and including much effort from the local community. In 2012, a Multi-Use Games Area or MUGA was added to the north side of the village hall. It has flood lights so that it can be used in the evenings. Two new storage buildings were added to the village hall site in 2015, together subsequently with two boules boulodromes or pitches.

Wortwell
Wortwell

Wortwell is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk and adjoining the county of Suffolk. It is located on both the River Waveney (which forms the county boundary) and the A143 road, some 20 km east of Diss and 30 km west of Lowestoft. The city of Norwich lies approximately 30 km to the north.[1][2]The village name originates from roughly 1704 when naturally occurring 'Wort' was found to spring from a well fed by a water source near to the local river Waveney. When the local brewer was satisfied with the beer brewed from the 'Wortwell' he would ring a bell to let the local residents know it was ready for drinking, which also gave the local drinking establishment its name, established as a pub in 1836. The civil parish has an area of 4.6 km2 (1.8 sq mi) and in the 2001 census had a population of 574 in 243 households, the population decreasing to 561 at the 2011 census. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of South Norfolk.[3]The village of Wortwell is one of the few in Norfolk not to be listed in the Domesday Book of 1086. Until the end of the 19th century Wortwell was a hamlet within the parish of Mendham-in-Norfolk, (the modern village of Mendham is south of the River Waveney in Suffolk) becoming a parish in the 1885 boundary alterations.Ezekiel Blomfield (1778–1818), a Congregational minister, author and compiler of religious works and works on natural history, was buried on 21 July 1818 in the grounds of the Meeting House at Wortwell.Wortwell has a well established football club, and its two football teams currently play in the Anglian Combination Football League, the first team playing in division 2 and the reserves playing in division 6. Home games are played at the rec at Wortwell community centre village hall.