Little Blakenham Pit

Little Blakenham is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located around two miles north-west of Ipswich and a mile south-west of its larger sister village Great Blakenham, in 2005 its population was 310. The parish also contains the hamlets of Inghams and The Common. The tiny village nestles at the base of gentle hillside. The church tower is visible for some distance, rising out of the trees. The parish is long and narrow, stretching some three miles from its south-western limit, not far from Flowton Church, to its north-eastern extremity, beside the River Gipping near Claydon. The Grade I listed church of St Mary The Virgin is set upon a grassy chalky bank beside a narrow lane, a little above the houses of its village and beside the former Rectory - a house with Dutch gables which stands at a considerably lower level. The east window of the church is a rare example in Suffolk of a stepped triple-lancet window of the late Early English period (c.1250-80). The congregation is supported from Bramford.The village has its own version of an old carol, surviving the days when the churches standardised onto a common hymnal. Pete Jennings of BBC Radio Suffolk, and also Chairman of the Suffolk Pagan Society, found the words in a notebook started in 1891 by a folklorist called Charles Partridge. He was quoting Revd John Jackson of Little Blakenham, who had taken down the words from an aged parishioner. This had been published in "Suffolk Notes & Queries" No 121. Pete could not locate a version of the work locally, so researched at Cecil Sharp House in London, the headquarters of the English Folk Song And Song Society. The only thing Pete could find related to it was an Irish hymnal, which provided some similar verses and a tune, under the title "The Sinner's Redemption". Pete eventually offered the material to folk trio Artisan from Yorkshire. Enquiries by a former church organist uncovered the fact that a very similar version of the carol can easily be found in the New Oxford Book of Carols.

Valley Ridge (formerly known as SnOasis) was a proposed ski and sports resort in Great Blakenham near Ipswich, Suffolk, England. In March 2021, the plan was for a £500 million investment based around a 180-metre ski slope and a water park. Plans submitted in 2004 were approved in 2008, and after no work had started were renewed in April 2020, but substantially altered plans were released less than a year later. The approved plans include a 415 metre long slope which would have become the largest real snow indoor ski slope in the world, along with a casino and nightclub, and were opposed by local groups. The plans were abandoned because of a conflicting plan for extension of a nearby landfill site.

Great Blakenham Pit is a 2.2-hectare (5.4-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest south of Great Blakenham in Suffolk. It is a Geological Conservation Review site.This is described by Natural England as a key site for Pleistocene studies. It has a sequence of early and middle Pleistocene deposits, including from the ancient course of the River Thames through East Anglia and from the severe Anglian ice age.The site is private property with no public access.

St Mary's Church is located in the village of Great Blakenham near Ipswich. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Bosmere, part of the archdeaconry of Ipswich, and the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich.St Mary's Church was listed at Grade I on 9 December 1955.

Great Blakenham is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England located near the town of Ipswich. An energy from waste Centre built by SITA UK was opened in December 2014 on the former site of the Highway Agency's Depot. All refuse from residential properties in Mid Suffolk and Babergh is sent here, No refuse goes to Landfill. .A holiday centre, Valley Ridge, is planned to be built near Great Blakenham, following a series of plans initiated in 2004. As of 2021, new plans have been submitted and completion of the project is intended in 2024.

Nettlestead is a dispersed village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England.The surrounding villages of Nettlestead include Somersham (the closest), Little Blakenham, Baylham, Barking, Willisham and Offton.

Claydon railway station was a station in Great Blakenham, Suffolk. It closed to passengers in 1963. The goods facility for Blue Circle Cement, British Steel Piling and Kings Scrapyard was still staffed in the late 1970s with the staff working from the former up side station buildings.

Baylham is a village and civil parish, 1,349 acres size, in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England, about 7 miles (11 km) northwest of Ipswich and 6 miles (9.7 km) southeast of Stowmarket. The buildings making up the village begin either side of the B113 road, with the majority following Upper Street and northwards along Church Lane, close to the church, to Glebe Close. It is bordered by the parishes of Barking and Darmsden to its West and North, Nettlestead in the South-West, Coddenham to the East and Great Blakenham to the South.

Papermill Reedbed is a 6 hectare nature reserve in Bramford in Suffolk. It is owned by Blakenham Farms and managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.The Trust has restored this area of dry grassland of low ecological value by installing water control measures to create wetland. Several species of dragonfly and damselfly have colonised the water-filled ditches, and they are used by water voles and otters.The Gipping Valley river Path goes through the reserve.

Somersham (also known as Lower Somersham) is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England, approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) northwest of Ipswich, with a population of 710 (2005).

Claydon is a village just north of Ipswich in Suffolk, England. The meaning of the name is "clay-on-the-hill". The village gives its name to the hundred of Bosmere-and-Claydon, one of the 21 districts into which Suffolk was divided for administrative purposes between Saxon and Victorian times.

Bramford is a village in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is three miles west of Ipswich of which it forms part of the wider Ipswich Built-up area. It was recorded in the Domesday Book as "Brunfort" or "Branfort". The River Gipping (the source of the River Orwell), runs at the bottom of the village and was a busy navigable waterway during the 19th century. A lock is still on the east of side of the village. The village has two churches; (one Anglican, St Mary the Virgin viewable from Bramford Bridge in the southeast of the village and one Methodist) in the north west of the village on the B1067 road. Bramford railway station was originally on the Eastern Union Railway but closed in 1955. The village is served by a variety of shops and services; a primary school (southwest), a pub (the Cock), a sports ground, a bowls club and other social groups, including a football club which has a first and reserve team. There is a private care village which is called Cherryfields made up of several bungalows and flats situated up Gippingstone Road in the centre of Bramford, opposite the Co-op. Bramford also has its own Royal British Legion club, and is also home to a St. John Ambulance station, with space for up to 10 vehicles. Nearby villages include Sproughton, Somersham and Little Blakenham.