Long Shop Museum

Richard Garrett & Sons was a manufacturer of agricultural machinery, steam engines and trolleybuses. Their factory was Leiston Works, in Leiston, Suffolk, England. The company was founded by Richard Garrett in 1778. The company was active under its original ownership between 1778 and 1932. In the late 1840s, after cultivating a successful agricultural machine and implement business, the company began producing portable steam engines. The company grew to a major business employing about 2,500 people. Richard Garrett III, grandson of the company's founder, visited the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, where he saw some new American manufacturing ideas. Richard Garrett III introduced flow line production – a very early assembly line – and constructed a new workshop for the purpose in 1852, known as the "long shop" on account of its length. A machine would start at one end of the long shop and as it progressed through the building it would stop at various stages where new parts would be added. There was also an upper level where other parts were made; they would be lowered over a balcony and then fixed onto the machine on the ground level. When the machine reached the end of the shop, it would be complete. In 1914, following a major fire at the works, it was decided to build a new factory on land that had been owned as a demonstration farm next to the station. From then on the sites were always known as the "Old Works" and the "New Works". The company joined the Agricultural & General Engineers (AGE) combine in 1919, and the combine entered receivership in 1932. The company was purchased by Beyer, Peacock & Company in 1932 after the collapse of AGE. The business continued as Richard Garrett Engineering Works until the works finally closed in 1981. Today, part of the old works is preserved as the Long Shop Museum. Some of the offices are used as flats but the rest of that site has been demolished and the land used for housing. Some of the New Works is still used as industrial units while the offices have been converted to flats and more built on the site, known as Colonial House. About 120 of the company's steam engines survived into preservation.

Leiston railway station was a station in Leiston, Suffolk. It was opened in 1859 by the East Suffolk Railway and later became part of the Great Eastern Railway on its 8.5 miles (13.7 km) branch line from Saxmundham to Aldeburgh. It was closed in 1966 as part of the Beeching Axe as much of the British rural rail network was cut back. The station survives intact and the line is still used to service the nearby nuclear power station at Sizewell.

Leiston ( LAY-stən) is a town and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is close to Saxmundham and Aldeburgh, 21 miles (34 km) north-east of Ipswich and 90 miles (145 km) north-east of London. The town had a population of 5,508 at the 2011 Census.

Summerhill School is an independent (i.e. fee-charging) day and boarding school in Leiston, Suffolk, England. It was founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around. It is run as a democratic community and is considered a Democratic School; the running of the school is conducted in the school meetings, which anyone, staff or pupil, may attend, and at which everyone has an equal vote. These meetings serve as both a legislative and judicial body. Members of the community are free to do as they please, so long as their actions do not cause any harm to others, according to Neill's principle "Freedom, not Licence." This extends to the freedom for pupils to choose which lessons, if any, they attend. It is an example of both democratic education and alternative education.

Leiston Football Club is a football club based in Leiston, Suffolk, England. They are currently members of the Southern League Premier Division Central and play at Victory Road.

Alde Valley Academy is a secondary school with academy status in Leiston in the English county of Suffolk. It has approximately 500 pupils aged 11 to 16, and a staff count of approximately 82. It draws pupils from the surrounding coastal area, including the towns of Leiston, Aldeburgh and Saxmundham. The academy was previously known as Leiston Community High School and was, for many years a 13 to 18 school. In September 2012, as part of reorganisation of high school education in Suffolk, the school became an 11 to 18 school and rebranded itself as Alde Valley School, a name chosen to reflect its large and rural catchment area. On 1 January 2015, Alde Valley School converted to an academy sponsored by the Bright Tribe Trust. The school is now known as Alde Valley Academy. In 2019 the school joined Waveney Valley Academies Trust. The academy's ethos is underpinned the motto 'Achievement for All'. The Acting Headteacher is Mr J Harris and the Deputy Headteacher is Mrs L Isaac. The academy was awarded a 'good' rating in 2017.

Aldringham is a village in the Blything Hundred of Suffolk, England. The village is located 1 mile (1½ km) south of Leiston and 3 miles (4½ km) northwest of Aldeburgh close to the North Sea coast. The parish includes the coastal village of Thorpeness. The mid-2005 population estimate for Aldringham cum Thorpe parish was 730.

The Parrot and Punchbowl is a 16th-century English pub in the Suffolk village of Aldringham in the Aldringham-cum-thorpe parish. It is a Grade II listed building associated with a history of smuggling. Its current title is The Parrot.

Leiston Abbey outside the town of Leiston, Suffolk, England, was a religious house of Canons Regular following the Premonstratensian rule (White canons), dedicated to St Mary. Founded in c. 1183 by Ranulf de Glanville (c. 1112-1190), Chief Justiciar to King Henry II (1180-1189), it was originally built on a marshland isle near the sea, and was called "St Mary de Insula". Around 1363 the abbey suffered so much from flooding that a new site was chosen and it was rebuilt further inland for its patron, Robert de Ufford, 1st Earl of Suffolk (1298-1369). However, there was a great fire in c. 1379 and further rebuilding was necessary. The house was suppressed in 1537. A Cartulary or monastic register survives. The Abbey's annual rolls of their court of wreck from 1378 to 1481 are a most important historical resource. A series of late visitations, and a list of abbots, are in Premonstratensian records. The impressive remains of the second abbey stand in the fields to the west of the road going north out of Leiston towards Theberton. After the Abbey was closed the estate was granted to Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. The Abbey became a farm, the farmhouse being built into the abbey walls. A Georgian frontage was added to the house, which was extended in the 1920s. In 1928 the ruins and farm were bought by Ellen Wrightson for use as a religious retreat. At her death in 1946 she bequeathed the house, ruins, land and buildings to the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. It was purchased in 1977 to become the home of the Pro Corda Trust, a centre for the specialized education and training of chamber musicians. The site is managed by them, and is in the guardianship of English Heritage.

Royal Air Force Leiston or more simply RAF Leiston is a former Royal Air Force station located 1.5 km (0.93 mi) northwest of Leiston and 1 km (0.62 mi) south of Theberton, Suffolk, England.

Knodishall, a village in Suffolk, England, lies 3.5 miles (6 km) south-east of Saxmundham, 1 mile (2 km) south-west of Leiston, and 3 miles from the coast, in the Blything Hundred. Most dwellings are now at Coldfair Green; just a few remain in the original village by the parish Church of St Lawrence, which falls gently on the north side of the Hundred River valley. It is now an outlier of Knodishall Common, a settlement a mile to the south-east. The estimated parish population was 790 in 2019.

Theberton is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England. It is located 4 miles (6 km) north-east of Saxmundham, and 3 miles (5 km) miles north of Leiston, its post town. In 2011 the parish had a population of 279.