Old Broom

Risby is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England, located around 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Bury St. Edmunds, north of the A14 road. It is believed that the village was founded in about the tenth century, presumably on the strength of its having a Norse name, possibly Rȳðs - by "farm settlement at a clearing" and identical to Ryssby in Sweden. The traditional division or Hundred in which it stands is Thingoe, also a Norse name. The village now has a population of 840, increasing to 866 at the 2011 Census.

Saxham & Risby railway station was a station serving Risby in the English county of Suffolk. It was opened by the Great Eastern Railway in 1854 following the line's extension from Newmarket to Bury St Edmunds. It was not particularly near either of the places it served, with Risby being about a mile to the north and Saxham a couple of mile to the south. Its main purpose was to serve agriculture in mid-Suffolk.At its peak during the period 1860 to 1890 there was a station master and three other members of staff. From 1929 onwards the four station staff were replaced by a 'Porter-in-charge' until its closure in 1967. Freight services ceased several years earlier, on 28 December 1964, along with other stations along the line. Saxham and Risby was one of four stations on the line between Ipswich and Cambridge which closed in 1967 following modernisation due to dwindling passenger numbers - the others were Higham, Fulbourn and Six Mile Bottom. After closure, the south platform and waiting room was removed in 1970, whilst the north platform and the main station building remained derelict until it was demolished in the late 1980s.Today, only a small part of the north platform remains alongside the station car park. A railway terrace house still stands along Station Avenue and has been converted to private residence, however most of the surrounding area has been transformed into an agricultural industrial estate.According to the Official Handbook of Stations the following classes of traffic were being handled at this station in 1956: G, P, F, L, H, C. and there was no crane. Calor Gas had a private siding there.

Lackford Lakes is a 105.8-hectare (261-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) north and east of Lackford in Suffolk. The SSSI is part of the 131-hectare (320-acre) Lackford Lakes nature reserve, which is managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.The lakes are disused sand and gravel pits in the valley of the River Lark. There are diverse dragonfly species, and many breeding and overwintering birds, including nationally important numbers of gadwalls and shovelers. Skylarks breed on dry grassland, and lapwings in marshy meadows.There is access from the A1101 road.

Thingoe was a hundred of Suffolk, consisting of 31,850 acres (128.9 km2).One of the smaller hundreds of Suffolk, around 9 miles (14 km) wide and 11 miles (18 km) long, Thingoe contained the borough of Bury St Edmunds on its eastern border, though the town was considered a separate jurisdiction. The remainder of the hundred consisted of the land to the west of Bury St Edmunds. The River Lark rises in the hundred, flowing north to the River Little Ouse. The name derives from the words thing, a Norse word meaning "assembly", and howe, again Norse, meaning detached hill or mound.

Flempton is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is on the A1101 road 5 miles NW from Bury St Edmunds. Flempton takes its name from the Flemings who came from Flanders and settled the area in Anglo-Saxon times. The Domesday Book records the population of Flempton in 1086 to be 16 households. According to the 2011 census the parish had a population of 149 in 68 households.St Catherine's church is a grade II* listed building whose tower was rebuilt in 1839 after it collapsed.The Flempton is grouped with Hengrave to form a parish council made up of eight members, four from each parish.The East of England Regional Assembly was based in Flempton House until 2010. The former village pub is The Greyhound on The Green which closed in 2016. It is close to the River Lark. Flempton Forge and nearby Forge Cottage are grade II listed buildings on The Green. The forge has recently been converted to a holiday let.

Lackford is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located around four miles north-west of Bury St Edmunds on the A1101, in 2005 it had a population of 270.The parish contains the Lackford Lakes nature reserve and SSSI, created from reclaimed gravel pits. The Black Ditches run to the west of the parish and mark the parish boundary with Cavenham in places. These are believed to be the most easterly of a series of early Anglo-Saxon defensive earthworks built across the Icknield Way. Lackford Hall is believed to have been built around 1570 by the fourth son of the squire of West Stow Hall. The hall is a three-chimneyed timber-framed medieval hall house, containing church and abbey stone reclaimed following the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII. The Hall is believed by local historians to have been a hunting and fishing lodge. Lackford Lakes Barns are an adjacent quadrangle of barns built from local timber and flint around 1839, based upon engravings in the windows. The medieval St Lawrence's church is a grade II* listed building.

Hengrave Hall is a Grade I listed Tudor manor house in Hengrave near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, England and was the seat of the Kitson and Gage families 1525–1887. Both families were Roman Catholic recusants.

The Saxhams is a civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located around two miles west of Bury St Edmunds, the parish covers the villages of Great Saxham and Little Saxham, as well as the Saxham Industrial Estate on the A14. In 2005 its population was 300. The parish was formed in 1998 from "Great Saxham" and "Little Saxham" and part of Risby.Until the Beeching Axe, the parish was served by the Saxham and Risby railway station on the Ipswich to Ely Line.

The Church of St John Lateran, Hengrave is the former parish church of Hengrave, Suffolk. In 1589 this parish was consolidated with that of adjacent Flempton, and since then it has solely been used as a place of interment for the residents of Hengrave Hall, who have ensured the church is properly maintained. The church is a Grade I listed building. Local antiquarian Samuel Tymms described the church at a meeting of the Bury and West Suffolk Archaeological Institute held at Hengrave Hall on 22 July 1852: "It is a small edifice with a round tower and south porch. The tower, now completely enveloped in ivy, is the oldest portion of the building, though one of the latest edifices of the kind. Its diameter is larger than is usual in these peculiar towers. The south porch, which remains nearly in its original state, was built, as an inscription over the inner doorway tells us, by the de Hemegraves, at the end of the 14th or beginning of the 15th century, when the church was probably rebuilt by them. The embattled parapet on the south side of the church exhibits some interesting details. Upon one of the battlements are the arms in flint work of de Hemegrave, Argent, a chief indented Gules; on another those of St. Edmund's Bury, a crown pierced with two arrows; and on a third the monogram IHS in Greek characters-between the initials of Mary and Joseph. From a fragment of an inscription still remaining, this ornamental work would appear to have been made by one John Hull, of London, and who may probably have been interred in this church. The fresco painting of St. Christopher carrying the infant Jesus, engraved in the History of Hengrave, has since been destroyed by damp. The monumental memorials are numerous. One to Margaret, Countess of Bath, and her three husbands, has the effigies of herself and Lord Bath, on an altar tomb, under a heavy flat canopy supported by six pillars, and that of Sir Thomas Kytson, her first husband, on a step in front of her tomb. A monument of corresponding form and size, but more elegant in design, has the effigies of the second Sir Thomas Kytson and his two wives. A mural tablet records the death and displays the effigy in a kneeling posture of Thomas-Darcy, the hope of the noble house of Rivers; and a monument of white marble against the east wall has a finely sculptured bust of Sir Thomas Gage, 3rd Baronet. There are also several slabs of grey marble in the pavement of the church, bearing arms and memorial inscriptions of the Gage family."

West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village is an archaeological site and an open-air museum located near to West Stow in Suffolk, eastern England. Evidence for intermittent human habitation at the site stretches from the Mesolithic through the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Romano-British period, but it is best known for the small village that existed on the site between the mid-5th century and the early 7th century CE, during the early Anglo-Saxon period. During this time, around 70 sunken-featured buildings were constructed on the site, along with 8 halls and a number of other features. Subsequently, abandoned, the area became farmland in the Late Medieval period. Antiquarian interest in the site began in 1849, when a nearby Anglo-Saxon cemetery was discovered. Subsequent excavations of Romano-British pottery kilns took place in the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, before the Anglo-Saxon settlement was revealed. The site was excavated between 1956 and 1972 by an archaeological team from the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works (MOPBW), led first by Vera Evison and then by Stanley West. Following the culmination of excavation, it was decided to reconstruct the village on the site, an experimental archaeological project which has been ongoing since 1974. In 1999, the site was opened to the public with a new visitor's centre, museum and cafe.

West Stow Heath is a 44.3-hectare (109-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of West Stow in Suffolk. It is part of the Breckland Special Protection Area under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds.This site has diverse habitats with grassland, heath, wet woodland, scrub, dry woodland and former gravel workings which are now open water. The grassland has three nationally rare plants, glaucous fescue, Thymus serpyllum and spring speedwell.There is access by footpaths, including from the adjoining West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village.

Hengrave is a small village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England. It is to the North the town of Bury St Edmunds along the A1101 road. It is surrounded by the parishes of Flempton, Culford, Fornham St Genevieve, Fornham All Saints and Risby. The River Lark provides the North East boundary of the parish.