RAF Mendlesham

The Mendlesham transmitting station is a broadcasting and telecommunications facility, situated close to the village of Mendlesham, near the town of Stowmarket, in Suffolk, United Kingdom (grid reference TM123640). It is owned and operated by Arqiva. It has a 305.4 metres (1,002 ft) high guyed steel lattice mast. Constructed in 1959, it came into service on 27 October of that year. It was at the time the highest television mast to be constructed in Europe and the first of six of the same height subsequently used at other Independent Television Authority stations. It was fabricated in Hereford from zinc-galvanised steel, and was erected by British Insulated Callender's Construction Co. (BICC), now known as Balfour Beatty. It was originally commissioned to bring ITV signals (provided by Anglia Television) to East Anglia, including Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Essex and Cambridgeshire on 405-line VHF, using Channel 11 (Band III). When UHF television came to East Anglia, main transmitters were commissioned at Tacolneston, near Norwich and Sudbury, near Colchester. Mendlesham was not required in the UHF plan, so when 405 line television was discontinued in the UK in 1985, the mast ceased to be used for any broadcast transmissions for over a decade. However, in 1997, the site was chosen to be a main transmitter for new regional commercial radio station Vibe FM (renamed Kiss 105-108 in 2006), on 106.4 MHz VHF FM at a power of 20 kW. Vibe FM launched November 1997. Later in December 2001, national digital radio multiplex Digital One also added its antennas to the mast. The BBC National DAB Multiplex was added on 13 July 2010.

Wetheringsett-cum-Brockford is a civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. The parish contains the village of Wetheringsett, together with the hamlets of Blacksmith's Green, Broad Green, Brockford Street (located on the A140), Brockford Green, Knaves Green, Page's Green, Park Green, Pitman's Corner, Wetherup Street and White Horse Corner. In the 2011 census, the population was 669. Wetheringsett-cum-Brockford is home to the All Saints Church and the Wetheringsett Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School. The parish also contains 55 listed buildings.

Brockford and Wetheringsett railway station was a station on the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway.

The Mid-Suffolk Light Railway (MSLR) was a standard gauge railway intended to open up an agricultural area of central Suffolk; it took advantage of the reduced construction cost enabled by the Light Railways Act 1896. It was launched with considerable enthusiasm by local interests, and was to build a 50-mile (80 km) network, but actual share subscription was weak, and the company over-reached its available financial resources. It opened 19 miles (31 km) of route from Haughley to Laxfield in 1904 to goods traffic only, and income was poor, further worsening the company's financial situation. The Board continued to harbour ambitions to complete the planned network, but crippling interest on loans and capital repayments falling due forced the company into receivership in 1906. Passenger operation was started in 1908, but this too was disappointing. At the grouping of the railways in 1923, the MSLR was still in receivership, and there was a protracted dispute over the liquidation of the debt, but in 1924 the Company was absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway. The poor usage of the line led to its closure in 1952. A heritage group started a railway museum site at Brockford, and as a charity it trades as the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway. The original line and the heritage line are informally referred to as the Middy Line.

Mickfield Meadow is a 1.9-hectare (4.7-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of Mickfield in Suffolk. It is managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.Fertilisers and herbicides have never been used on this meadow, and as a result it has a rich variety of flora, including fritillary. The dominant grasses are meadow foxtail, cocksfoot, false oat-grass, timothy and Yorkshire fog.There is access by walking along a field margin from Brook Lane.

Mickfield is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located around five miles north-east of Stowmarket, in 2005 its population was 200.The Church of St Andrew was made redundant in the late 1970s and was allowed to fall into disrepair. The building has now been restored by the ACT (Anglia Church Trust) and is being used by the community. The small brethren gospel hall was demolished in 2009, after 104 years, on completion of the new church building, Mickfield Evangelical Church. No longer known as a brethren church, the group are now affiliated with the FIEC (Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches).

Wetheringsett is a village in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located to the east of the A140, it is the largest village in the parish of Wetheringsett-cum-Brockford. Richard Hakluyt, writer best known for promoting the English colonisation of North America through his works, was rector of All Saints from 1590 to 1616.

Brockford Street is a hamlet in the civil parish of Wetheringsett-cum-Brockford, in the Mid Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England, sited upon the A140 road between Ipswich and Norwich. Nearby is Brockford Station, part of The Mid-Suffolk Light Railway which closed under B.R. in 1952. The Mid-Suffolk Light Railway Museum is located at the site of the old cattle dock. Brockford was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Brocfort.

Stonham Aspal is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England, some five miles (8 km) east of the town of Stowmarket. Nearby villages include Mickfield, Little Stonham and Pettaugh. Its population in 2011 was 601. The village has a primary school. It is set in farmland, but has a busy main road, A1120, running through.

Mendlesham is a village in Suffolk with 1,407 inhabitants at the 2011 census. It lies 5 miles (8 km) north east of Stowmarket and 73.135 miles (117.699 km) from London. The place-name 'Mendlesham' is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Melnesham and Mundlesham. The name means 'Myndel's village'.Mendlesham is known for its large street fair which is held on every May Day bank holiday. Mendlesham has a popular community newsletter, and a good primary school. There is one public house in the village called 'The King's Head'. The village has a fish and chip shop and Mendlesham Bakery, a 'Premier Stores' convenience store with a Post Office counter.. Nearby at grid reference TM123640 is the Mendlesham transmitting station which broadcasts Kiss 105-108 (previously Vibe FM) on 106.4 MHz and the Digital One digital radio multiplex, and which was formerly used for VHF 405 line transmissions of Anglia Television. The mast stands at the corner of the former WWII airfield, RAF Mendlesham. This was used by the RAF and US Eighth Air Force between 1943 and 1955, and once held a memorial to the US 34th Bomb Group. The memorial has now been moved to the churchyard of St. Mary's in Mendlesham. Although some of the land has reverted to agriculture or is an industrial estate, one airstrip is now used by the Suffolk Coastal Floaters Hang Gliding Club. There are two churches in the village, a small URC chapel and the grand medieval church of St Mary the Virgin, built at a time when the village had a much larger population, as well as a Baptist chapel in Mendlesham Green. Unlike many Anglican churches today, there is a mass (Communion) service held every day at St Mary's. In 1531, the Mendlesham Christian Brethren were a group of Protestant dissenters, and two decades later, Adam Foster became a Marian martyr, after he refused to attend a Roman Catholic mass. He was condemned to be burnt at the stake by John Hopton, the Bishop of Norwich. Mendlesham had the second station on the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway, which ran from 1904 to 1952. Mendlesham Manor is an Elizabethan Manor House. Close to Mendlesham is the hamlet of Mendlesham Green, which contains Mendlesham Green Baptist Church.The village was struck by an F0/T1 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day.

Mendlesham railway station was a station on the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway.

Little Stonham, also known as Stonham Parva, is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located just off the A140, around three miles east of Stowmarket, in 2005 its population was 350.St Mary the Virgin's Church in the village is a redundant Anglican church. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building, and is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.