The origins of the Suffolk Regiment, an infantry regiment of the British Army, date back to 1685. In that year the “Duke of Norfolk's Regiment of Foot” was raised on the orders of King James II, in response to the threatened Monmouth Rebellion. The Regiment was mainly made up of men from Suffolk & Norfolk & was initially stationed at Landguard Fort near Felixstowe & Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. Although set up to support the Catholic king, the Regiment ended up fighting against him in Ireland, including at the Battle of the Boyne (1690).

During the eighteenth century the Regiment found itself at various times in such places as Flanders, the West Indies, Germany, Holland, Catalonia & Minorca & saw action in the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years War & the Siege of Gibraltar, as well as spending some time in Scotland in the aftermath of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s ’45 Rebellion. Whilst not overseas, during the 1730s & early 1740s, the Regiment was intermittently headquartered at Ipswich.

In 1751 the Regiment was renamed the 12th Regiment of Foot & in 1782 was given a county association as the 12th (the East Suffolk) Regiment of Foot.

The 12th Regiment of Foot, along with five other British regiments, took part in one of the most famous battles of the Seven Years War on 1st August 1759 at the town of Minden in what was then Prussia, but is now in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Known as the Battle of Minden, it is said that the soldiers picked roses & wore them in their hats during the battle. This has been celebrated ever since each 1st August as Minden Day, when red & yellow “Minden Roses” are worn; a tradition still observed by 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment.

Another Regiment with a link to Suffolk came into being in 1758, when the 2nd Battalion of the 8th (The King's) Regiment of Foot became 63rd (the West Suffolk) Regiment of Foot .(In 1881 this amalgamated with the 96th Regiment of Foot to form the Manchester Regiment).

The 12th Regiment of Foot was stationed in Gibraltar from 1769 to 1783, & was involved in the Siege of Gibraltar by the Spanish and French from 1779 to 1783. From that time on, the Regiment took the arms of Gibraltar as its crest, with the castle & key emblem becoming part of the cap badge. The Regiment were also stationed on the rock between 1823 & 1834. A legacy of the Regiment’s time in Gibraltar can be found in Suffolk House on the Upper Rock, which was a Ministry of Defence building until 2004. The time spent in this part of the world was also remembered closer to home when, in 1878, the new barracks in Bury St Edmunds were named Gibraltar Barracks.

In 1810 the Second Battalion of the 12th (the East Suffolk) Regiment of Foot was formed, but this was disbanded in 1818. A Reserve Battalion was formed in 1842 &, after its return from South Africa, where it had taken part in the Kaffir Wars, was renamed as the newly reformed Second Battalion in 1858.

In 1852, part of the First Battalion was aboard HMS Birkenhead enroute to South Africa, when they were shipwrecked off the Cape coast. A memorial to the 55 soldiers who drowned can be seen in St Mary's Church, Bury St Edmunds.

The nineteenth century also saw the Regiment at various times in such places as Australia, New Zealand, India, Burma, Mauritius, Egypt & Ireland. During this century, the Regiment had frequently depended on the Suffolk Militia for recruits and had maintained recruiting parties in the county. In 1873 Cambridgeshire was also added to the recruiting area, & in that same year the Depot of the Regiment was established at Bury St Edmunds, with barracks being built there five years later.

In 1881 the Regiment became known as the Suffolk Regiment. At this time The West Suffolk Militia and The Cambridgeshire Militia became the 3rd and 4th Battalions respectively. By the end of the century 90% of the men came from Suffolk.

The First Battalion were stationed on the Northwest Frontier from 1876-92 during the Second Afghan War (see Suffolk Hill Piquet, Pakistan page). They were also in South Africa for the Second Boer War (1899-1902). This included a battle that took place in 1900 on a hill near Colesberg in the Northern Cape which was subsequently named Suffolk Hill (see Suffolk Hill, South Africa page).

In 1908 the Territorial Force was formed (the forerunner of today’s Territorial Army). This was organised on a county basis with the 4th Battalion established in East Suffolk and the 5th Battalion in West Suffolk.

During the First World War, various battalions of the Suffolk Regiment fought in Europe & Palestine. Altogether, 23 Battalions of The Suffolk Regiment were raised during the Great War. This included a notable battle that took place in 1914 to the west of Le Cateau-Cambrésis in northern France defending a small hill that became known as Suffolk Hill (see Suffolk Hill, France page).

In June 1935 a London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) Class B17 steam locomotive, was named The Suffolk Regiment (see below).

In the Second World War, the First Battalion were sent to France; being evacuated from Dunkirk, but then returning to Normandy in June 1944 & seeing action in Belgium, Holland & Germany. The Second Battalion were initially on the Northwest Frontier, before being redeployed in Burma. The 4th & 5th Battalions were in Singapore, whilst the 7th Battalion, as 142 Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps, were deployed in North Africa & were the first to use Churchill Tanks.

In 1944 the Suffolk Regiment was granted the Honorary Freedom of the Borough of Bury St Edmunds.

After the war, the Regiment served as a peace keeping force in India, Palestine, Malaya, Greece & Cyprus. The Second Battalion was disbanded in 1947.

On 29 August 1959 the First Battalion Suffolk Regiment amalgamated with the First Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment to form the First Battalion, the First East Anglian Regiment (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk). This was the forerunner of today’s Royal Anglian Regiment, formed in 1964, which still includes the First (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk) Battalion. In 1995 the Battalion renamed each of its 4 companies after the old county regiments; B Company becoming B (Suffolk) Company.

The Suffolk Regiment has also provided its name to roads and cemeteries in Europe where it was involved in major battles during both World Wars (see Roads in Europe named after the Suffolk Regiment and Cemeteries in Europe named after the Suffolk Regiment, below), as well as at locations in the British Empire where it was stationed (see Suffolk Road, Vacoas, Mauritius and Suffolk Road (Triq Suffolk), Pembroke, Malta, below).

The Suffolk Regiment Museum is based in Gibraltar Barracks, Newmarket Road, Bury St Edmunds. Established in 1935, the museum contains displays & artefacts from throughout the Regiment’s existence. Admission is free, & the museum is open on the first & third Wednesdays & the first Sunday of each month. Also in Bury St Edmunds is the Suffolk Regiment Gallery, situated in Moyses Hall Museum, Cornhill.

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The Suffolk Regiment - LNER Class B17 Steam Locomotive

From 1935 to 1959, a London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) Class B17/1 steam locomotive LNER no. 2845, BR no. 61645) was named The Suffolk Regiment, in honour of the county’s regiment (see The Suffolk Regiment, above).

Built at the LNER’s Darlington Works in 1935, it was officially named at a ceremony at Ipswich station by Colonel in Chief, Brigadier General Sir John Ponsonby on the 22nd June 1935, where it was decorated with Minden Roses.

After the Second World War, the engine was used to bring the Suffolk Regiment troops, on their return from Malaya, back to Suffolk from Liverpool.

The Suffolk Regiment was withdrawn from service on 26th February 1959 & was disposed of at British Rail’s Doncaster Works soon afterwards.

Between 1928 & 1937, LNER built 73 class B17 steam locomotives. Designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, they were predominantly in use for passenger services on the Great Eastern Main Line. Over the course of the years that they were being built, five different classes were produced (B17/1 – B17/5). From 1943 onwards, however, many of the original engines were rebuilt with 100A boilers & reclassified to become the B17/6. The Suffolk Regiment underwent this reclassification in December 1952.

The first B17, built in 1928, was named Sandringham, which began a trend of naming subsequent engines after English country houses or castles (e.g. Alnwick Castle, Harewood House, Harlaxton Manor). From 1936 onwards, however, most were named after English football clubs. Most kept their names throughout their existence, although a few underwent name changes, such as the Burnham Thorpe becoming The Lincolnshire Regiment, or the Thoresby Park being renamed Tottenham Hotspur.

All B17s were withdrawn by 1960 & none have survived.

Model railway specialists Hornby now sell models of many B17 locomotives, including a replica of 61645 The Suffolk Regiment.

Roads in Europe named after the Suffolk Regiment

Suffolkweg, Oude Suffolkweg and Suffolkweg Zuid, Weert, Netherlands: These three roads (Suffolk Road, Old Suffolk Road & Suffolk Road South in English) are all so named because it was the Suffolk Regiment that liberated the city of Weert on September 22, 1944. A memorial plaque in commemoration of this event can be found on the city bridge. Oude Suffolkweg, Suffolkweg and Suffolkweg Zuid is the main thoroughfare running along the northwest side of the Zuid Willemsvaart canal from the Belgian border towards the city bridge in Weert. The liberation event is still commemorated annually by a torch relay between Weert and Brussels in Belgium (around 100 miles away by road).

Weert lies around 19 miles southeast of the city of Eindhoven in southeast Holland, not far from the border with Belgium.

Suffolkstraat (Suffolk Street) is another road named after the regiment in Nederweert (Lower Weert) just to the north of the city. The road runs west from the Wessem-Nederweert Canal and becomes the Montgomerystraat. This town was liberated in the same manner and at the same time as the city of Weert.

Rue de Suffolk Régiment, Colleville-Montgomery, Normandie, France: The road between the towns of Biéville-Beuville and Colleville-Montgomery in Normandie, France, is named the Rue de Suffolk Régiment. This is to commemorate the capture of the Hillman Battery by the 1st Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment on 6 June 1944. At the southern end of Colleville-Montgomery is a 24 hectare site (Site Fortifié Hillman) comprising 18 casemates and underground galleries, built by the Germans from 1942 to 1944 as their defensive command post. A plaque is located on the Hillman Battery main blockhouse in memory of the soldiers of the Suffolk Regiment who died in this assault.

Colleville-Montgomery is situated close to the coast, around 10 miles north of Caen, & approximately 155 miles west of Paris.

Boulevard de Suffolk, Biéville-Beuville, Normandie, France: A separate road in the adjacent town of Biéville-Beuville commemorates the same event.

Biéville-Beuville is immediately south of Colleville-Montgomery, about 5 miles from Caen.

Cemeteries in Europe named after the Suffolk Regiment

Suffolk Cemetery, Vierstraat, Ieper, West Vlannderen, Belgium: Suffolk Cemetery is located 6 km south west of Ieper town centre, on the Kriekstraat. From Ieper leave through the Lille Gate and head towards Armentieres (N365), after close to 1km on the right just before the level crossing is the N331 Kemmelseweg, after 5km along this road is a right turn onto Poperingestraat, a further 800 metres along here is a left turn into Kriekstraat, the cemetery is a further 80m on the right. Access and parking are easy, although there is a short grassed path leading to the cemetery.

This small battlefield cemetery was started in March-April 1915 by the 2nd Bn. Suffolk Regiment who gave the cemetery its name because of their casualties buried there. Apart from one burial made in November 1917, the cemetery was not used again until October 1918 when soldiers of the 1st/4th and 1st/5th York and Lancasters were buried. There are 47 First World War burials, 8 of whom are unidentified.

The cemetery was originally known as “Cheapside Cemetery” after the road which runs south west nearby, but this was thought an unsuitable name for those who had made the final sacrifice. The cemetery grounds were assigned to the United Kingdom in perpetuity by King Albert I of Belgium.

Suffolk Cemetery, La Rolanderie Farm, Erquinghem-Lys, France: Erquinghem-Lys is a village and commune in the Département du Nord, on the main road from Estaires to Armentières, and on the south bank of the river Lys. From the Mairie in Erquinghem head north east towards Armentières. After the school, turn right towards Bois Grenier. Continue along this road for 900 metres, crossing the railway line on the way, then turn right into the farmyard. The track leading to the cemetery is immediately after the barn building.

La Rolanderie Farm was used by the 34th Division as Brigade Headquarters in February and August 1916 and in March 1918. It later become the headquarters of the 121st Brigade, and was severely shelled and bombed. In April 1918 this cemetery was made on the south-west side of the farm. It covers an area of 405 square metres and is enclosed by a low brick wall. The cemetery contains the graves of 43 soldiers from the United Kingdom, of whom 36 belonged to the 11th and 12th Suffolk Regiment. Eight are unidentified.The name, originally La Rolanderie Farm Military Cemetery, was changed in 1925 at the request of the Suffolk Regiment.

Reserve Forces in Britain Bearing the Name Suffolk

By 1907 Britain had three reserve forces. They were the Militia, the Yeomanry, and the Volunteers.

The Militia was the oldest force. It had been formed in England in the middle ages as a home defence force. Each county of England had to provide a force of foot soldiers from the male civilian population in times of crisis to supplement the regular army. Militia members were not paid soldiers, but served as volunteers on an ad hoc basis to protect their home and country. From 1852 it had become a volunteer force of infantry, artillery, engineer and medical units. Largely based in the rural parts of the country, landowners acted as officers, and farm labourers formed the bulk of the rank and file. As well as a home defence force, the Militia also acted as an organisation for regular soldiers who transferred to the reserves on completion of full-time service.

The Yeomanry had been formed in the 1790s as a force of volunteer cavalry whose ranks were filled by independent farmers who were sufficiently wealthy to provide their own horses. Often used as a police force during the 19th century, being in the Yeomanry was seen as glamourous, with a high public profile.

The Volunteers began as rifle clubs in the cities and large towns as a popular movement from 1859. During the 1860s they were enlarged to include artillery and engineers as well as infantry. From the start the Volunteers had a strong local connection and were originally raised by Lord Lieutenants of counties. They were more vigorous than the Militia, but confined to home defence. The local connection and the fact that they were volunteers indicated that the force were under no obligation to serve overseas, although they could volunteer to do so. Originally highly autonomous, the units of volunteers became increasingly integrated with the British Army after the reforms in 1881, before forming the bulk of the Territorial Force (now the Territorial Army) in 1908.

East Suffolk Militia/Suffolk Artillery, and West Suffolk Militia: The obligation that all able-bodied males should serve in the militia in England derives from a common law tradition, and dates back to Anglo-Saxon times. The decline of the feudal system led to the nobility abandoning their personal armies, thus the militia took on a new importance in the 16th century. They were organised on the basis of the shire county, and were one of the responsibilities of the Lord Lieutenant, a royal official. Every parish furnished a quota of eligible men, whose names were recorded on muster rolls, and it was their duty to defend the country in times of war or emergency. The Militia was supposed to be mustered for training purposes from time to time, but this was rarely done.

The Militia Act of 1757 aimed to create a professional national military reserve. Musters were still kept, and the men were selected by ballot to serve for longer periods, and thus obtain better training. In 1759 East and West Suffolk Militia Battalions were formed, organised at Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds respectively. Although muster rolls were prepared as late as 1820, the element of compulsion was abandoned, and the Militia was transformed into a volunteer force. They were intended to be seen as an alternative to the regular army. Men would volunteer and undertake basic training for several months at an army depot. Thereafter, they would return to civilian life, but report for regular periods of military training. The Militia was at first an entirely Infantry force, but in 1853 the East Suffolk Militia was converted into an Artillery unit known as the Suffolk Artillery Militia. The West Suffolk Militia continued as Infantry, and was eventually absorbed into the Suffolk Regiment in 1881 as the 3rd Battalion (see The Suffolk Regiment, above).

The purpose of the Artillery was to defend vulnerable locations around the coast. In 1855, divisions of the Suffolk Artillery were quartered at Landguard Fort, Tilbury Fort, and Hull. Ipswich remained the headquarters and in February 1855 the new Artillery Militia Barracks was opened at Ipswich on the north side of the town, occupying the 2½ acre site of an older barracks between Norwich Road, Anglesea Road, Berners Street and Orford Street. The barracks remained until 1929, when they were demolished & the land redeveloped into a residential area.

In April 1882 the unit was renamed the 3rd Brigade, Eastern Division, Royal Artillery, until 1889 when it again became the Suffolk Artillery Militia. In 1902 it became the Suffolk Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) as part of another reorganisation that made the RGA responsible for the coastal defence batteries. The unit continued to be known colloquially as the “Suffolk Artillery”. The shortcomings of the Army organisation revealed during the Boer War led to the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act of 1907 that reformed the auxiliary forces of the British Army by transferring existing Volunteer and Yeomanry units into a new Territorial Force (TF), and disbanding the Militia to form a new Special Reserve of the Regular Army. This resulted in the disappearance of the “Suffolk Artillery” on 1 April 1908. The volunteer element of the artillery units continued the name in part as the 1st Suffolk & Harwich RGA, a “defended ports unit” of the Territorial Force guarding the coastal facilities, with its headquarters at Harwich, and the Suffolk & Essex RGA based at Colchester. In 1924 the RGA was re-amalgamated into the Royal Artillery and ceased to exist.

With the creation of the Territorial Force in 1908, the former West Suffolk Militia , now the 3rd Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, became the 3rd, Special Reserve, Battalion. The original militiamen soon disappeared, and the battalions became training units pure and simple. Upon mobilisation, the Special Reserve units would be formed at the depot and continue training while guarding vulnerable points in Britain. Thus the 3rd, Special Reserve, Battalion remained in Britain throughout the First World War, but their rank and file did not, since the object of the special reserve was to supply drafts of replacements for the overseas units of the Suffolk Regiment. The Special Reserve reverted to its Militia designation from 1921 until 1923 when the 3rd Battalion was placed in suspended animation. In 1953 the Militia was finally formally abolished. However, the West Suffolk Militia by then had long faded away.

Suffolk Yeomanry (also known as the Duke of York's Own Loyal Suffolk Hussars): In the 1790s, the threat of invasion was high after the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. To improve the country’s defences, volunteer cavalry regiments were raised in many counties, and these regiments became known collectively as the “Yeomanry”. While the word “yeoman” in normal use meant a small farmer who owned his land, Yeomanry officers were drawn from the nobility or landed gentry, who could afford to provide their own horses and equipment.

The Suffolk Yeomanry was form ed in 1793 by Arthur Young of Bradfield Combust in Suffolk. Arthur Young (1741-1820) was an English writer on agriculture and economics and in 1793 he had just been appointed secretary of the Board of Agriculture. In celebration of its centenary, the Duke of York (later George V) reviewed the Suffolk Yeomanry on 25 May 1893 and conferred on them the title of the “Duke of York’s Own Loyal Suffolk Hussars”.

Members of the Yeomanry were not obliged to serve overseas without their individual consent. Nevertheless, they served in South Africa during the Boer War as the 43rd and 44th Squadrons of the Imperial Yeomanry. In 1908 the Imperial Yeomanry became the Cavalry arm of the Territorial Force. In 1914 Yeomanry regiments were asked to volunteer for overseas duty as dismounted infantry. The Suffolk Yeomanry went to Gallipoli in September 1915; from 1 January 1917, they were designated the 15th (Yeomanry) Battalion, the Suffolk Regiment, and were in Egypt as part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force and in France from May 1918 until demobilisation in June 1919. After World War I, it had become clear that cavalry was obsolete and in 1920 the Suffolk Yeomanry lost its separate identity to become a Royal Artillery regiment and merged with the Norfolk Yeomanry to form the 108th (Suffolk and Norfolk Yeomanry) Field Brigade, R.A. This became an Anti Tank Regiment (Suffolk & Norfolk Yeomanry) of the Royal Artillery, and was attached to various Territorial Army Divisions during World War II. The name still survives today as one of the designations in the Territorial Army, and the units bearing the name continue to have a close relationship with Bury St Edmunds.

Suffolk Rifle Volunteer Corps: The 1st Suffolk Rifle Volunteer Corps was raised in October 1859 at Ipswich. Subsequent Rifle Volunteer Corps were raised throughout the county. In 1863 the Volunteers in Suffolk were organised into three administrative Battalions, with Headquarters at Sudbury, Woodbridge and Halesworth. In 1881 these units were organised into the 1st East Suffolk Rifle Volunteers (HQ at Woodbridge) and the 6th West Suffolk Rifle Volunteers (HQ at Sudbury). In 1886 they became the two Volunteer Battalions of the Suffolk Regiment: the 1st (formerly the 1st East Suffolk) and the 2nd (formerly the 6th West Suffolk). Volunteers were not obliged to serve overseas, but in 1900 a Special Army Order called for volunteer companies to fight in South Africa, and the Volunteer Battalions did supply two Companies of troops to fight in the Boer War. Under the 1907 Territorial Force Act the 1st and 2nd Volunteer Battalions became respectively the 4th and 5th Battalions of the Suffolk Regiment (see The Suffolk Regiment, above).

As well as the three well established reserve forces detailed above, three other units were raised in Suffolk during the late eighteenth century to counter the threat of invasion from the contintent. These were short lived, however, lasting only until the first decade of the nineteenth century:-

Suffolk Provisional Cavalry/Suffolk Fencible Cavalry: Formed in the same decade as the Suffolk Yeomanry (see above), & recruited from the same class of people & for the same purpose of defending the country against invasion from France, the Suffolk Provisional Cavalry was formed with six troops in 1796. John Rous (later created the Earl of Stradbroke) was the “leader” of these cavalry volunteers in 1797. It was later commanded in 1798 by Lt. Col. Sir William Rowley of Tendring Hall, Stoke-by-Nayland (son of Admiral Sir Joshua Rowley. See Suffolk Bay, St Vincent & the Grenadines on The Ones That Got Away page). Around 34 Fencible units were formed all over the British Isles during this period, most of them on a county basis.

Sources vary as to when exactly the Suffolk Provisional Cavalry became known as the Suffolk Fencible Cavalry, although by August 1799 all Provisional Cavalry units in Britain were converted to “Fencible Cavalry” (the word being derived from ‘defencible’).

In February 1797, the Suffolk Fencible Cavalry was stationed in Bristol at the time of an attempted invasion by the French along the Pembrokeshire coast at Fishguard. With the first phase of the Napoleonic Wars coming to an end, Parliament ordered all fencible units to be disbanded in March 1800, except for those who had volunteered to serve in Europe. In 1802, with the signing of the Treaty of Amiens, the remaining fencible regiments were disbanded.

Suffolk Regiment of Fencible Infantry: The Suffolk Regiment of Fencible Infantry (also sometimes simply known as Suffolk Fencible Infantry) was raised in October 1794, under the command of Colonel John Robinson. In 1798, they were sent to Ireland by the British government to help quell what became known as the Irish Rebellion of 1798; an uprising against British rule that lasted from May to September. On 24th May they were involved in the opening skirnishes of the rebellion, which took place in County Kildare. One month later, on 21st June, they were part of a force that were engaged in the Battle of Vinegar Hill, near Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in which the British force of 15,000 troops launched an assault on the headquarters of the Wexford United Irish rebels.

Like their cavalry counterparts, the Suffolk Regiment of Fencible Infantry had been disbanded by 1801.

Suffolk Sea Fencibles: Another volunteer militia to bear the name Suffolk, there is very little detail now available on the Suffolk Sea Fencibles (also sometimes known as the Sea Fencibles, Suffolk District), although it is probable that one of their duties would have been to assist in the manning of the Martello Towers along the Suffolk coastline. We do know from the obituaries section of the Gentleman’s Magazine of November 1835 that one Edward Killwick, who died at Southwold in that year, held an appointment with the Sea Fencibles, Suffolk District from 1798 to 1802.

Sea Fencibles were naval militia formed to provide a line of defence along the coast of Britain to protect against invasion by France during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. They were established by order of the Admiralty in 1798, & were made up of naval officers & volunteer seafaring men. The Sea Fencibles organisation was divided into districts, with each district covering a stretch of coast and under the command of a Post-Captain, assisted by between three & six Lieutenants, depending on the size of his command. Many smugglers joined the Sea Fencibles, as it gave them immunity from being impressed into the navy, although most volunteers were fishermen, bargemen or merchant sailors. The volunteers were trained in the use of arms & were employed to man watchtowers & operate a fleet of small vessels. They were disbanded after the Treaty of Amiens of 1802. The ensuing peace, however, lasted only until the following year, when the Sea Fencibles were reformed. At this time they were given a more prominent role at sea; being a second line of defensive blockade behind the naval fleet. With the threat of invasion diminishing, the Sea Fencibles were finally disbanded in 1810.

Suffolk Redoubts, New Zealand

The 12th (East Suffolk) Regiment of Foot was involved in the Waikato War 1863-1864. This was a key conflict in New Zealand history in which the British colonial government intended to crush Maori power. When the smoke cleared, the British seized over a million acres of tribal territory, and the door was open to complete European control of the North Island.

The Maori had built defensive earthworks along the Koheroa Ridges above the Mangatawhiri River, the northern boundary of their territory, just south of Auckland. It was the British decision to cross the stream under arms that began hostilities on 17 July 1863. The commander of the British Army, Lieutenant General Duncan Cameron, with 553 men attacked the Maori positions, held by some 100 to 150 Waikato Maori. After a brief skirmish, the Maori fell back to their base further south. Thirty men, including the chief, Te Huirama, had been killed in the fighting. The British lost one soldier.

The Maori retreated to the swamplands and now resorted to guerrilla warfare, where between 20 to 200 Maori warriors would regularly cross the Waikato River to harass the British troops and kill settlers towards Auckland. In September 1863 Cameron responded by creating a series of about 20 stockades and redoubts, designed to protect his supply line and impede the ability of the Maori to attack further north. Redoubts were built on the Koheroa Ridges because they gave good views of the Waikato River to both the north and south. Two of these were manned by the East Suffolk Regiment. They were basically earthwork enclosures surrounding a small wooden fortress containing between 25 to 50 men. The conflict moved further south and by April 1864 these redoubts were vacated.

The Suffolk Redoubts are now protected archaeological sites designated S15/12 and S12/238 at a height of 78m (255ft) on top of the Koheroa Ridges. The basic earth mounds and depression inside the mounds are still intact. They are included in the key historical sites visited on guided tours of the Waikato War Trail.

Suffolk’s Ridge or Suffolk Ridge, Gaza

Gaza’s strategic position was such that any power holding that town could control access to the Sinai and Egypt (and the Suez Canal) or, the other way, could gain access to Palestine and the Levant. In the First World War, Gaza was part of the Ottoman Empire, Germany’s ally. In 1915, the British had thwarted an Ottoman attempt to take the Suez Canal. The Turks had fallen back on Gaza which was defended by a strongly entrenched Ottoman Army garrison. It was essential that the Entente Powers should take Gaza to prevent further attacks and eliminate this stronghold that blocked the passage to Palestine and the Middle East.

In December 1915 the 1/5th Battalion and 15th (Suffolk Yeomanry) Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment were sent to Alexandria to join the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and during 1917 they were involved in the three Battles of Gaza. The first and second battles were fought in March and April 1917. Both were defeats for the British and Imperial troops. However, in the Second Battle of Gaza between the 17th and 19th April the front line was advanced slightly and the Suffolks were able to dig a trench on a small ridge in the desert to the southeast of the town of Gaza. Thus, the name Suffolk’s Ridge was given to this entrenchment (see photo, below). Fatal casualties in this vicinity were hastily buried on the battlefield in what became known as Suffolk Ridge Cemetery.

*Regimental Aid Post, ‘Suffolk’s Ridge’, Sheikh Abass. (Second Battle of Gaza) - Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum*

This entrenchment soon had to be abandoned because it was exposed to hostile fire, and the Ottoman troops occupied it. On 1st November the Third Battle of Gaza commenced and this broke the Ottoman line so that the garrison in Gaza was in danger of being isolated. The Turks were forced to evacuate the town and on the 5th November Suffolk Ridge fell into British hands again.

This wartime name was only temporary and soon forgotten, except by the soldiers who had fought in this theatre of the war. Today the city’s buildings cover this and other ridges. The casualties buried in the Suffolk Ridge Cemetery were exhumed and reburied in the Gaza War Cemetery, opened in Gaza City’s Tuffah district in 1920, and still in the care of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Fort Suffolk

Fort Suffolk was a temporary fort built at the Siege of Colchester during the English Civil War.

By the end of 1646 the Parliamentarians had defeated the Royalists of King Charles I. However, in May 1648 the conflict was re-ignited when Royalists in Kent rose against Parliament. They were defeated and the remnants of the Royalist forces commanded by the Earl of Norwich fled to Essex, hoping to raise the eastern counties. General Thomas Fairfax at the head of a Parliamentary force remained in close pursuit, forcing the Royalist army of about 5,600 men to retreat behind the walls of Colchester. Fairfax arrived on 13th June with about the same number of men and placed the town under siege.

Both sides appealed to the Suffolk Trained Band for assistance. Trained Bands were local militia regiments organised on a county basis in the use of the pike and musket for the defence of the county. Neither party was sure for which side the Suffolk Trained Band would fight for, but on coming up to Colchester with six companies of horse and dragoons on the 21st June, they declared for Parliament. The Suffolk men were actually more concerned about preventing either side from spreading destruction into their county and they, therefore, took on the task of guarding the approaches to the bridges across the River Colne to the north and east of the town. On 23rd June the Suffolk forces began to build a fort called Fort Suffolk, on the north side of the town, to close off the Suffolk road towards Stratford. The Royalists attacked the Suffolk Trained Band on 5th July, and drove them into their fort. This assault was repulsed, and by mid-July the perimeter had been secured and Colchester was then subject to an 11 week blockade.

It is recorded that Colchester’s inhabitants had taken to eating cats, dogs, soap and candles to stay alive. Word came on the 22nd August that Oliver Cromwell had defeated the Royalist army at Preston. With no possibility of being relieved by friendly forces from the north, the Royalists finally surrendered on 27th August. All Lords and Gentlemen were taken prisoner, with common soldiers sent home on condition that they never again take up arms against Parliament. Fort Suffolk was dismantled after two months in use. Its location was at Mayors Spinney in Highwoods Country Park, 1 mile (1.5 km) north of Colchester town centre. To the east is the residential development of Highwoods and Ipswich Road. The surrounding fields have produced musket balls associated with the 1648 Siege of Colchester.

Suffolk Square Pillbox

Along the East Anglian coastline, as elsewhere in the British Isles, a number of WWII coastal anti-invasion defences remain more or less intact. Between Felixstowe and The Wash, a large number of these were hastily constructed in 1940, necessitated by the imminent invasion by Nazi Germany. The defences take various forms, the most commonly seen is the ‘pillbox’. For our non-British readers we need to explain what this is. A ‘pillbox’ is a small fortified structure, commonly known in other countries as a ‘blockhouse’ or ‘surface bunker’. The modern concrete structure was first built by the Germans in 1917 as a defensive post along the Hindenburg Line on the Western Front. They were popularly known to the British as a ‘pillbox’ by reference to their shape which was reminiscent of the hexagonal boxes in which medical pills were once sold.

Pillboxes are concrete military redoubts or small fortresses equipped with embrasures (openings through which to fire weapons). They come in many forms: usually having five or six sides. The most common being the hexagonal shape with a blast wall protecting the entrance. The embrasures differ too, from small to large and vary in number in each wall. Out of an estimated 28,000 only just over 6,000 survive. Today they remain as permanent monuments and a silent tribute to the courage and tenacity of the British people during the uncertainty of the early 1940s when Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany.

*Suffolk Square pillbox at Knodishall Whin near to Friston, Suffolk*

Although some square pillboxes (known as Type 26) were built elsewhere in the country, the Suffolk Square, as its name suggests, is a design unique to Suffolk. Their distinctive shape comes from the construction work of 55th Division Royal Engineers who were based in Suffolk in the summer of 1940. It is a square shaped infantry pillbox for rifles and light machine guns, designed to protect its occupants against small arms fire only. They are not hardened “shell-proof” structures since the walls are only 15” (38cm) thick with the roof and floor 11” (28cm) thick, built of 3” (8cm) concrete blocks. The walls are 12’ 6” (3.81m), similar to a Type 26 but slightly larger. They are most commonly shuttered with concrete blocks and have two embrasures in the front face with one each in the other faces. Concrete shelves inside the pillbox under the embrasures allowed riflemen to rest their elbows when firing. The entrance is protected with an L shaped blast wall or porch. Rather alarmingly for the occupants, there was no anti-ricochet wall to prevent incoming bullets spinning around the interior. Records list the number constructed as 245 of which 37 examples of this type remain today.

Suffolk Lane and Ipswich Walk, Mönchengladbach

At first sight, it seems strange to have these British place-names in a German town. However, this becomes clear when it is realised that the town in question was the headquarters of the British Armed Forces in Germany. JHQ (Joint Headquarters) Rheindahlen was a military base located just outside Mönchengladbach, Germany, active from 1954 to 2013. It was known as the Rheindahlen Military Complex.

In October 1954 Britain centralised its military functions previously located across several towns in Northern Germany to Rheindahlen. The facilities in the complex included a NAAFI superstore, German shops, a travel agent, a German bank, post offices, libraries and restaurants. There were medical and dental centres, four British primary schools and a secondary school. It was really a separate town with housing for the married servicemen. The roads in the Complex were all named after UK and Commonwealth places; these generally follow a thematic pattern. Ipswich Walk comes off Cambridge Drive and is between Newcastle Way and Bath Walk, with Colchester Walk the next road after that; all named after English towns. Suffolk Lane comes off Norfolk Lane and meets up with Sutherland Lane in an area where they are named after counties. Ipswich Walk contained married quarters, but Suffolk Lane does not seem to have been built on.

The Rheindahlen military complex was handed back to German federal authorities in December 2013. It has remained a ghost town since then with civilian security guards. In April 2016 refugees were accommodated in some of the billets. Many of the buildings are still in good condition and it is, in effect, a ready-made town.

Places Associated with the Noble Houses of Suffolk

A number of places have been given the name “Suffolk” from association with either the Dukes of Suffolk or the Earls of Suffolk. Most of these have been dealt with separately. (See Suffolk Hills, Arizona page. On Other Suffolks page see Suffolkpynten, Norway; The Suffolks, Cheltenham; and London Suffolks sub pages. On Suffolk Misc. page see Suffolk Palace, Kingston-upon-Hull; Suffolk House, Ewelme & Suffolk House and other Suffolks in Sevenoaks sections, below). Of other places bearing the name “Suffolk”, only a handful seem to be associated with the noble family.

At the Dissolution of Malmesbury Abbey in 1539 much of its property was bought by a prosperous clothier of the town named William Stumpe. His eventual heiress, Catherine Knyvet, married Thomas Howard, who was created first Earl of Suffolk in 1603. A House was built on her estate of Charlton Park just outside Malmesbury in the county of Wiltshire, and after her death it was inherited by her second son Thomas, created Earl of Berkshire in 1626. The lands around Malmesbury subsequently descended with the earldom of Berkshire which, in 1745, also inherited the earldom of Suffolk. The family still live at Charlton Park House. The family owned over 8000 acres of land around Malmesbury and acquired other property in Cheltenham, just over the border in the county of Gloucester. On the land that they owned, three public houses were given the name The Suffolk Arms. These were located in Cheltenham, Malmesbury and Brinkworth. The oldest one in Cheltenham still exists (see The Suffolks, Cheltenham page), but the other two, both established in the late 19th century, sadly are no more. The Malmesbury pub (on Tetbury Hill) was demolished in 2004 to make way for a housing development. The Brinkworth pub (on The Common) was closed in 2010 to be converted into a private house.

Suffolk Close in the village of Charlton, those already covered under The Suffolks, Cheltenham page, and Suffolk Way, Sevenoaks, are the only streets that are directly associated with the family in that they were built on land owned or leased by the Earls of Suffolk. Six thoroughfares with the name Suffolk in three other cities are indirectly connected to the family.

They are:

i. Suffolk Street (Sraid Suffolc) in Dublin, Ireland. This was named after the Earl of Suffolk in 1682. He did not own the land but the Earl of Orrery, who did own the land, was the grandson of the 2nd Earl of Suffolk; his mother, Lady Margaret Howard, being the Earl’s daughter. She married the Irish peer, Roger Boyle, the 1st Earl of Orrery. (See Suffolk Street – The Heart of Viking Dublin, below)

ii. Suffolk Road and Suffolk Lane in Sheffield, England. The manor of Sheffield passed to the Dukes of Norfolk by marriage in 1616. Between 1771 and 1778 the 10th Duke of Norfolk laid out Sheffield’s first planned streets on land that he owned south of the city centre. Wide straight streets were built north to south, and east to west. Behind each street there was a narrow back lane for deliveries to the establishments that had frontages on the wider roads. The back lanes had the same name as the streets they served. These thoroughfares were named after the family and possessions of the manorial lord of Sheffield, hence there is a Norfolk Street and Surrey Street for his titles; Charles Street and Howard Street for his proper name; Earl Street for his rank as Earl Marshal; Arundel Street for his main residence, and Furnival Street for his ancestors. Suffolk Road (originally Street) and Suffolk Lane were an extension south of Howard Street, named after his relatives the Howard Earls of Suffolk. (See also Suffolk Works, Sheffield, England & the “Suffolk Knife”, below)

iii. Suffolk Road, Suffolk Road Lane and East Suffolk Road in Edinburgh, Scotland. Gilmour Road, Granby Road, Suffolk Road and Wilton Road were built after 1888 on the estate of Sir Robert Gilmour of Craigmillar and Liberton. They were named after Robert Gilmour and fellow peers in the House of Lords in celebration of himself being elevated to the peerage in 1887. Suffolk Road was named after Henry Howard, 18th Earl of Suffolk. Streets further north were named after members of the House of Commons, namely McLaren, Bright, Cobden, and Peel. Suffolk Road Lane is a service road for garages at the backs of premises on Gilmour Road and Craigmillar Park. East Suffolk Road has nothing to do with the administrative county of that name, but is simply an extension eastwards of Suffolk Road. A late 20th century development has seen the conversion of former college Halls of Residence into multiple apartments known as East Suffolk Park (see East Suffolk Road & East Suffolk Park, Edinburgh, below).

A fourth area of land in Scotland may also be associated with the Earl of Suffolk name, but no direct connection can be determined. As this is a geographical feature, it is therefore shown on a separate sub page under Other Suffolks (see Suffolk Hill, Scotland page).

Suffolk House, Ewelme, Oxfordshire, England

Ewelme is best known for its beautiful 15th century cloistered almshouses, officially called “The Two Chaplains and Thirteen Poor Men of Ewelme in the County of Oxford”. The almshouses were established in 1437 by Alice de la Pole, Duchess of Suffolk, as a Trust. She was the granddaughter of the poet, Geoffrey Chaucer. She and her father had both lived at Ewelme Palace which once stood in the village and they are both buried in St. Mary’s Church, which adjoins the almshouses. The almshouses are still run as a charity by the Ewelme Trust.

The original almshouses were modernised by the introduction of bathrooms around 1970. This meant that the 13 almshouses became just 8, although the original external appearance was retained. To maintain the correct number of almspeople, a modern complex of 5 almshouses was built beside the stream just a short walk away. The new building was named Suffolk House.

Suffolk Palace, Kingston Upon Hull, England

There is no trace of this palace in Hull now. Yet the palace and its magnificent grounds once encompassed nine acres around the entire area now bounded by Lowgate, Queen’s Gardens, Bowlalley Lane and Quay Street.

There is a record of a house built in the manor of Myton and Tupcoates in Hull in the early 14th century, and it presumably passed to the de la Pole family, prominent Hull merchants, when they acquired the manor about 1330. The manor house and grounds occupied a large, roughly triangular area bounded by Marketgate (now Lowgate), Bishopgate (now Bowlalley Lane), and a common way running alongside the town wall. Michael de la Pole became Earl of Suffolk in 1385 (see Suffolk as a Title above), and in 1387 he rebuilt his manor house into a stately mansion, which then became known as “Suffolk Palace”.

In 1504, by the attainder of Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, all the revenues, manors, lands, and estates of that nobleman were confiscated and forfeited to the king; amongst which was the manor of Myton and Tupcoates with Suffolk Palace. King Henry VIII granted the Palace to Sir Henry Gate from whom it passed to the Hillyard family of Winestead, who lived a few miles to the east of Hull. Under the Hillyards it lost its title of Suffolk Palace and became known as the King’s Manor or Manor House. The family sold it to King Charles I, and he converted it into a magazine for arms in 1639. At the Restoration the property again reverted back to the Crown, but King Charles II immediately sold it to Hull Corporation from whom it was bought by Henry Hillyard of Horsey, Surrey in 1663. The glory days were over, and it was for the most part pulled down, but the gateway is said to have remained until 1771.

The former palace and gardens were sold off to become a typical busy city centre. Today it is one of the busiest areas of central Hull. The present Town Hall occupies the area that was the northern end of the palace; the remainder of the property is now occupied by mostly business premises, the former General Post Office (which has now been converted into apartments) and a public house called The Three John Scotts (named after three generations of Anglican ministers in Hull with the same name).

Duke of Suffolk’s Palace, Dover Castle, England

Unlike the palace above, this Duke of Suffolk’s Palace still exists, although it is no longer called by this name. It is to be found in Dover Castle, a medieval castle in Kent, England. Its strategic significance guarding the shortest route from the Continent to England meant that there has always been a fortification on this site dating back to before the Romans. The present castle was begun by King Henry II in the 1180s, and today it is the largest castle in England.

Although many of the original medieval buildings within the castle were demolished and new structures rebuilt on the same site in later periods, one of the surviving medieval buildings includes Keep Yard 9, located on the south eastern side of the Inner Bailey. This is described as the “Palace of the Duke of Suffolk” by John Bereblock in 1570 when he made a drawing of the castle. It is immediately adjacent to the east of the Palace Gate. The exact date of this building is unknown, but it appears to be substantially medieval with irregular rubble throughout.

The connection with the Duke of Suffolk begins in 1447/8 when William de la Pole, the 1st Duke of Suffolk, became Constable of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports. He was, at the time, the principal power behind the throne of the weak King Henry VI. This inevitably led to him making many enemies, and his disastrous wars in France resulted in a conspiracy that ended with his beheading for treason in 1450. His son, John de la Pole, the 2nd Duke of Suffolk, was more fortunate in that he chose the ultimate winning side in the War of the Roses and he married Elizabeth of York, making him the brother-in-law of two kings, Edward IV and Richard III. In the 1470s Edward IV renovated Dover Castle to be used as a residence as well as a fortress. A tower recess in the wall was repaired and converted into apartments for the Duke of Suffolk, hence it was known as the “Duke of Suffolk’s Palace”. This name was retained by the building even after subsequent Dukes of Suffolk fell out of favour with the kings of the time. Despite the extinction of the title in 1554, the name was still being used in 1570 as Bereblock’s drawing indicates.

In 1625-6 the Duke of Buckingham converted this building into the Lord Chamberlain’s lodgings for his use while staying at the castle. After his assassination in 1628, the former Duke of Suffolk’s Palace was revamped for officers’ accommodation. It remained a barracks building and, thereafter, the name fell into disuse. The building (see above left) is still in use.

Suffolk House and other Suffolks in Sevenoaks, Kent

General John Howard, 15th Earl of Suffolk, 8th Earl of Berkshire (1739 -1820) was primarily a British soldier. He was the grandson of a second son who was himself descended from the seventh son of the second son of Thomas Howard, the first Earl of Suffolk (see no. 5 in Suffolk as a Title, above). So, on the surface, there seemed little chance that John was destined to inherit the Suffolk title. As was common for the lesser members of aristocratic families, John Howard entered the military in the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards. In 1779 he was sent to America and was active in several of the campaigns of the American War of Independence, including the final southern campaign of General Cornwallis. He was wounded in 1781 and sent home, thus escaping the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. John Howard remained in military service, but destiny was taking a hand in removing one by one the likely heirs to the Suffolk title. Thus, in 1783, he succeeded a distant cousin as Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire. In 1807 we have the earliest record of the Earl of Suffolk being in residence at the mansion in Sevenoaks that hereafter would be known as “Suffolk House”. His date of leaving is unknown, but he left the mansion before he died in 1820. In this short period of time, the name “Suffolk” became associated with this part of Sevenoaks.

The large mansion dominated this part of Sevenoaks. The frontage of the estate stretched from the Hole-in-the-Wall (a pedestrian entrance to Knole Park on Seal Hollow Road), along Seal Hollow Road (B2019) to the High Street (A225), and continued south along the eastern side of the High Street to where the Tesco Metro supermarket site used to stand (a new development called Chandler’s Place being built in 2023). It adjoined Knole Park, a medieval deer park of a thousand acres; Knole was once the palace of the Archbishops of Canterbury. Knole is one of England’s largest houses, the oldest parts dating from the 15th century. The park has remained unchanged for 400 years and is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

In 1585 the 36 acres estate surrounding the future Suffolk House was owned by John Blome, a prosperous textile merchant and town butcher. That year he built the mansion that stood where Suffolk Way today joins the High Street. Within that area of the town, there was no other house of importance. In 1717 the property passed to the Fermor family. This family developed the garden and added a 40 acres deer park that later became known as “Suffolk Paddock”. Stables, a granary, a lodge and hop kilns were added by the family. The house and garden were sold in 1807 to the Earl of Plymouth, the owner of Knole Park. That same year, John Howard, the 15th Earl of Suffolk, rented the estate and, soon after, the name “Suffolk House” became attached to the mansion. The Knole estate was enlarged by the purchase of Suffolk Paddock some time between 1825 and 1830. It thereafter became known as “Knole Paddock”. In 1927 the local authority bought Knole Paddock and it became playing fields for football, cricket and tennis; it is also the home of the Sevenoaks Rugby Club.

Meanwhile, the deaths of t he Earl of Plymouth in 1815 and the Earl of Suffolk in 1820, ended any association of those families with Suffolk House. However, the “Suffolk” name had now become familiar to this part of Sevenoaks. Suffolk House was sold to the local undertaker, cabinet maker and auctioneer, Benjamin Sanders. He immediately demolished the mansion around 1821 and made a start on building “Suffolk Place” on the High Street (see photo, left), which was located to the south of the former Suffolk House. Sanders sold the estate to Robert Comfort soon after. The conversion of the Suffolk estate was continued by Robert Comfort who completed Suffolk Place, the stables became a brewery and he converted the coach house into a dwelling house by 1823. This house became known as “Suffolk Cottage” and was later renamed “Suffolk Lodge”, which would later become the location of the present “Suffolk House”.

Suffolk Place was a row of six private homes with railings and steps up to their front door, reserved for “gentlemen” and “families of gentry folk” rather than the aristocracy. In 1901 they were homes to middle class retired and some still practising professional people: doctors, dentists and even a small school for “the children of gentlefolk”. In 1936 and 1937 these were all converted into “retail outlets”, i.e. shops with residential flats above.

Further south of Suffolk Place on the High Street there was a gap until the site of the later Tesco Metro supermarket. Here, in 1837, the Suffolk estate sold the land for the first bank to be built in Sevenoaks, the London & County. This later moved to new premises at 67 High Street in 1871 eventually becoming, after several mergers, the National Westminster Bank. The original building then became another commercial site with residential premises above it.

The brewery was behind Suffolk Lodge and Suffolk Place with its malting houses extending to the main road where the present Suffolk Way enters the High Street. This was sold in 1865 to the brewers James Smith & Co. who serviced 23 tied pubs in the Sevenoaks area. However, the brewery ceased its activities in July 1899. It remained a depot until 1911 when its buildings on the High Street just south of Suffolk Lodge became the “Cinematograph Electric Theatre” showing silent moving pictures. In 1935 the High Street picture house became “The Cinema” seating 1,200 patrons, and in 1937 it was converted into a purpose-built cinema renamed “The Plaza” which also boasted a restaurant. This was later taken over in 1948 to become the “Granada”. It closed in October 1960 and was eventually demolished, the site becoming a car park.

For a short period in 1913, part of the old brewery became the public generating station bringing electricity to Sevenoaks, until a larger plant was completed elsewhere the next year. After the end of the war, in 1919, the site was purchased by Caffyns who realised that the internal combustion engine was about to be embraced by the general populace. This motor dealer group built a showroom, garage, petrol station and car hire business there. When Caffyns moved to London Road, the site of the former brewery became home in turn to a decorator store, plant nursery and finally an electrical shop.

Building continued on the Suffolk estate until about 1847 to fill the gap between Suffolk Place and the bank. These later buildings were named as “Suffolk Terrace”. These became commercial buildings with residential flats above them. Further refurbishment in 1926 and 1940 took place. They remain today “retail outlets”, comprising four shops and a Japanese restaurant, with three maisonettes and two flats above them. The names Suffolk Place and Suffolk Terrace for these rows of shops are still in existence although rarely used. They were applied before street numbering became common. Today all the premises have addresses in the High Street, Sevenoaks.

Meanwhile, Suffolk Lodge was used as a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) Hospital of some 46 beds during World War I 1914-1918. The original building was demolished and rebuilt between 1934 and 1936 to become a “retail outlet” in a similar fashion to Suffolk Place. The name “Suffolk House” now once again came into use locally for this building.

In 1980 the local authority decided to develop the area behind these buildings on the High Street to build a library, leisure centre and car park. This was the “Suffolk Way” development and the access route off the High Street to these facilities, where the cinema was once located, was given this name. On the corner of Suffolk Way and the High Street is “Suffolk House”, an imposing detached office building built in 1987 (see photo, left), after the previous building (Suffolk Lodge/Suffolk House) had been demolished. This is not to be confused with the original Suffolk House which occupied more or less the same site.

Two other office buildings were built along Suffolk Way at the same time, St John’s House where the Caffyns motor car dealer used to be, and another opposite, both having the address of 1 Suffolk Way. However, the main presence now is the large, short-stay “Suffolk Way Car Park”. This was built on what were the grounds of the original Suffolk House and later became playing fields acquired by the local council. This Suffolk Way connects to a much older road, Buckhurst Lane, from which the new library and leisure centre take their addresses. The Suffolk Way development consists of office space, car parks, a library, museum and arts centre, closely associated with shops and upper floor residential premises adjacent to Suffolk Way on the High Street. A further development obtained approval in March 2021 that is expected to “enhance the visual appearance of the High Street and Suffolk Way” (Chandler’s Place - see next below). The development of the former Suffolk estate continues today in 2023. The bank building that once stood at the end of Suffolk Terrace was demolished in 1926 to be replaced by a single storey building. This was itself demolished to make way for the Tesco Metro supermarket, built in 1978/79. Tesco closed down this outlet in 2018. History repeats itself. This has now been demolished. Chandler’s Place will replace it.

The £40 million development plan to demolish the old Tesco’s building and replace it with a six storey apartment block aims to transform the current 1-acre derelict site into a public space, and also provide 104 new homes and three retail units. The building will be set further back from the High Street with the creation of an open space with trees and seating along the High Street. This will retain and enhance the present pedestrian route (Chandler’s Walk) that is a public right of way to Suffolk Way, and links with the town library, museum and arts centre as part of the “cultural quarter” of Sevenoaks. When the plan was open for public debate, there were 6 in favour of the new development and 49 objections.

The building and open area is named after the existing Chandler’s Walk. This is a pedestrian thoroughfare through from the High Street to the land behind the buildings on the High Street. This was partially covered when the Tesco supermarket was built. The overpass of Chandler’s Walk was identified in the High Street Conservation Area Appraisal as detracting from the character and appearance of the area. Furthermore, it was little used as it was unwelcoming because the Tesco overpass kept the site in the dark and there were no clear sight lines. (The name is commonly given to such narrow, dark thoroughfares; a ‘chandler’ was originally the medieval household officer responsible for the candles and it became associated with a person who makes or sells candles. Obviously a “shady character” who hangs around in dark places !)

There was much criticism of the old Tesco building (136 High Street): that it was top heavy in appearance and the first floor overhung the High Street. The building was connected at first floor at both ends, to No. 134, a listed building, and Nos. 138a-138b (Suffolk Terrace), thus detracting from these historic buildings that better reflected the character of this part of the town’s shopping centre. That is not to say that there is probably just about the same feeling concerning the new development; that it is out of scale, too massive, as well as insufficient affordable housing and only 52 car parking spaces for 104 flats!

We acknowledge the contribution towards this entry from “Sevenoaks – An Historical Dictionary” by David Killingray & Elizabeth Purves (2012) for the Sevenoaks Historical Society.

Suffolk House, Old Inn Lane, Fosdyke Bridge, Lincolnshire, England

This is an early 18th century two storey red brick building, colour washed white, probably encasing timbers from an earlier building. An extension was added in the 19th century. It is a Grade II listed building. It is now the farmhouse of “Suffolk House Farm”, but it was long an inn by the ferry crossing situated on the north bank of the River Welland estuary in Lincolnshire. The dates of the original building here and when it became an inn are lost in antiquity, but its name in the first record of it in 1805 was already the “Old Inn”. The small hamlet of four or five houses that sprung up around the inn in the 19th century became known as “Old Inn Corner”. It was owned by Soames Brewery of Spalding in the early 1900s, but was sold before 1910 as a private residence, renamed then as “Suffolk House”. The name of this house of refreshment was retained in the name given to the lane leading to the hamlet. The larger settlement became known as “Fosdyke Bridge” after the structure built in 1815 that probably sealed the fate of the “Old Inn”, since there was no longer the necessity for travellers to stop and imbibe whilst waiting for the ferry or a change in the tide.

The Old Inn was best known for the “Fosdyke Tidal Clock”. This is a unique longcase (grandfather) clock showing high tide for the River Welland estuary at Fosdyke Wash (see photo, right). It was made in the 1740s by William Bothamley of Kirton, Lincolnshire. Although it looks like a conventional longcase clock denoting the time, day of the month and the phases of the moon, the special feature of the clock is that it shows the rising and falling of the tide in Fosdyke Wash which indicates when it was safe for the guides and drovers with their cattle to start to cross this dangerous estuary, which was then a distance of two miles through bare sands and shifting channels. For many years this clock was located at the Old Inn. It is known that it was there in 1805 since the clock was part of the inventory when Thomas Rothwell took the tenancy of the Old Inn. Travellers and cattle drovers would wait at the inn until the clock indicated that it was safe to cross the estuary. With the building of Fosdyke Bridge nearby in 1815, the clock became unnecessary and it was sold in 1866. However, it still exists and occasionally appears for sale at auctions.

The “Suffolk House” name seems to have been given by the Hurst family who came from that county. Henry Hurst and his wife, Mary Ann, were born in Suffolk in 1841 and 1835 respectively. Henry states on the census form for 1881 that he was born at “Wentworth” while his wife was born at Westerfield. There is no village or hamlet named “Wentworth” in Suffolk, but it is likely that Henry was born on the Wentworth family estate adjacent to the village of Nettlestead. Westerfield and Nettlestead are only 8 miles apart to the north of Ipswich. Two of their six children were also born at Westerfield. By 1871 the family was in Lincolnshire and by 1878 they were resident at Old Inn Corner where one of their sons was born. It is not clear from the census forms which of the five houses at Old Mill Corner they lived in. Henry Hurst gives his occupation as a farm labourer. It may be that in a large building such as Old Inn, part of it was leased out and this large family from Suffolk lived in that part. Hence, it became known colloquially as “Suffolk House” and after the pub was sold by Soames Brewery, this name was adopted since, as a private residence, it could no longer be called “Old Inn”. By this time, the Hurst family had moved on, but it does seem that they had left a lasting impression on the small hamlet.

Suffolk Street Queensway & Suffolk Works, Birmingham, England

Suffolk Street, Birmingham, England: Suffolk Street has long been an inner city thoroughfare just west of The Bull Ring in the centre of Birmingham, leading south onto the Bristol Road. It is still included in the modern road system of England as part of the A38 route which runs from the North Midlands down to the South West of England.

In the early 18th century Birmingham was still a country market town and the present site of Suffolk Street was an area of market gardens on the outskirts of the town. However, this small country town was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution and by the middle of the century a series of parliamentary acts allowed the large estates to be sold for development. The estates were divided into plots which were acquired by builders, but many were leased directly to manufacturers. Both parties sub-let their plots for the erection of workshops, thus the character of these areas was one of streets congested with dwelling houses and small factories.

Suffolk Street is first shown on a map of 1778, but still has market gardens to the west of it, while to the east the narrow streets are already in place. The exact date when Suffolk Street was built is unclear, but it is known that some of the adjoining streets were constructed in the 1760s, so it must have been during this period. The land on which it was built was originally demesne land of the lord of the manor of Edgbaston. Since the 14th century this had been the Middlemore family. In 1717 that family sold the manor to Sir Richard Gough. His son, Sir Henry Gough (died in 1774), married the heiress to the Calthorpe estates in Norfolk and Suffolk, around the villages of Calthorpe and Ampton respectively. Thus, for this reason Suffolk Street, and a smaller Norfolk Street that led off Suffolk Street, were named after these counties. Another road off Suffolk Street was named Gough Street, although the land in this case belonged to the brother of Sir Henry.

The first canal to be built in the city was the Birmingham Canal, built from 1768 to 1772 under the supervision of James Brindley. This ended at the edge of Birmingham adjacent to the north end of Suffolk Street (hence Navigation Street which crosses Suffolk Street towards the canal, built in 1769). This district later became the industrial area where two of the “Suffolk Works” were located (see Suffolk Works, Berkley Street, and Oozells Street, below). Further development of the area to the west of Suffolk Street had to wait until the Worcester and Birmingham Canal was built. This began in 1792 but progressed slowly; it was opened in December 1815. The terminus of the canal was at Worcester Wharf in Severn Street, named because the canal made a connection to the River Severn possible. This was built in 1792 just off Suffolk Street. In 1825 a map still shows market gardens existing along the southern end of Suffolk Street, but over the next ten years the same complex of housing and small factories was built along streets coming off Suffolk Street, where access to the canal assisted the transportation of materials.

The southern end of Suffolk Street merged into a lane called Brick Kiln Lane. In 1777, because of increasing congestion in the town centre, the horse fair where trading in horses took place was moved to here. Brick Kiln Lane soon became known as The Horsefair. The horse fair survived until 1912 but the name stuck. When the Inner Ring Road was built in the mid-1960s a mosaic mural 30 metres in length depicting the horse fair was erected in the centre of the roundabout built at this location at the end of Suffolk Street.

The next big development to affect Suffolk Street before the 20th century was the coming of the railway. By the late 19th century the railway had superseded the canals as the favoured form of transport. The Midland Rail way acquired the land between Suffolk Street, Severn Street, and Wharf Street in 1881. The Worcester Wharf Goods Station opened for traffic on 1st July 1887. This later became the Birmingham Central Goods Station. The site of the depot was built over the old Norfolk Street and was bordered by Suffolk Street at the front. (The Gough family had built a much larger Norfolk Road when they released their lands in Edgbaston for development in the 1850s.) The Goods station closed in 1967.

Looking along Suffolk Street in the 1960s with Birmingham Central Goods Depot behind the hoardings on the left and the Matthew Boulton College of Technology towering on the right.

After the Second World War the increase in road traffic had grown too heavy to be adequately served by the existing system. The construction of an Inner Ring Road was planned to impose a new pattern of roads, junctions, and subways in the centre of the city. It was designed as a dual carriageway crossing all the main arterial roads leading out of the city and would thus quicken the flow of through traffic. The new Inner Ring Road encompassed Suffolk Street as part of the main A38 national roadway system. Work was begun in 1957. In 1971 when Queen Elizabeth II opened the Inner Ring Road, then called the Ringway, she was invited to name part of it as The Queensway. However, after the queen had been driven around the Ring Road it was suggested that the whole of it should become The Queensway: hence the official name of this particular segment is now known as Suffolk Street Queensway.

The building of the Inner Ring Road improved the image of Suffolk Street itself and it became a desirable commercial address. This is demonstrated by the Alpha Tower (see photo, right), a high quality 28 storey office building in Suffolk Street completed in 1973. It is a prominent landmark, being one of Birmingham’s tallest buildings at 328 feet (100 metres). It was the city’s tallest tower block for 35 years. It was originally the headquarters of the commercial television company ATV and its production studio complex known as ATV Centre. After the closure of the TV studios in 1997, Birmingham City Council bought the tower and it is now the main offices for the City Council, and also provides office space for a number of other organisations.

In the late 20th century the area to the west of Suffolk Street had become subject to industrial decay. Factories were derelict, the canals were in disuse, and most of the former public buildings were empty. The City Council decided on a plan for the urban regeneration of this district with the aim of making the city more pedestrian friendly, and improving its general aesthetic appearance. The first development was around the canals where the former Suffolk Works had been located. This mixed use scheme known as Brindleyplace began in 1994 and was completed in early 2009 (see Suffolk Works, Oozells Street, below).

Another major redevelopment is the Mailbox, an upmarket complex of offices, designer shops, restaurants, bars and luxury city-centre apartments, previously the location of canal wharves along the streets adjacent to Suffolk Street. The site was the location of the Royal Mail’s main sorting office and the largest building in Birmingham, hence its name. The building was converted to include two hotels, office accommodation, retail space with restaurants and a health club. A public square to the front of the Mailbox beneath Suffolk Street Queensway was designed as a social area.

The Suffolk Street Fellowship, also called Suffolk Street Christadelphians, was the name of a Christian sect that existed from 1885 to 1957, and took its name from this street in Birmingham where the founding members met (see below).

Suffolk Works, 118 Suffolk Street: Birmingham’s relatively inaccessible location meant that its industries were dominated by the production of a wide variety of small, high value metal items. The small scale workshop, rather than the large factory or mill, remained the typical Birmingham manufacturing unit in the 19th century, characterised in part by entrepreneurial expertise that brought small scale technological improvements to existing designs. It was during this period that Birmingham established itself as the principal commercial centre for the Midlands and the leading metal manufacturing centre in the country.

It was probably inevitable that one of the small workshops along Suffolk Steet would call itself “Suffolk Works”. William Chambers Day is recorded in James Pigot’s Commercial Directory for 1828-29 at “Suffolk Works”, 118 Suffolk Street, Birmingham. He is listed primarily as a Beam Scale Manufacturer, but also worked as a general iron founder in screw plates, die stocks and weighing machines. His firm became best known for its manufacture of beam scales, also known as steelyards. These are industrial usage weighing machines where a balance consisting of a scaled arm is suspended off centre, and the object which is to be weighed is hung on a hook at the shorter end; a counterbalance at the longer end can then be moved to find the weight. The name William Chambers Day is marked on coin weights and is a collector’s item.

The firm, known as Day & Co. from about 1850 onwards, amalgamated with the firm of John Millward in 1852, and the address of “Day & Millward” is recorded as the Suffolk Works, Birmingham. William Chambers Day died in 1863 and John Millward in 1889. The latter’s sons continued the business using the same name and address but, in 1895, the firm was dissolved by mutual consent. Thereafter, although other businesses operated from the address of 118 Suffolk Street, it seems that the name “Suffolk Works” was no longer used. This is probably because a larger and better known concern using this same designation had been operating since 1851 a short distance away in Berkley Street.

Suffolk Works, 11 Berkley Street: Berkley Street runs parallel to Suffolk Street, a couple of blocks away on the other side of the canal. In 1851 an enterprising young man, aged 22, named John Eliot Hodgkin set himself up as a mechanical engineer and iron founder. J.E.Hodgkin came from a well-to-do Quaker family in Tottenham where his father was a notable barrister. John Hodgkin was interested in engineering and his father obtained an apprenticeship for him with Ransome & Sims, the engineering firm in Ipswich, Suffolk. The keen young engineer moved to Birmingham and named his new venture “Suffolk Works”. This is not surprising since in 1854 he was to marry Sarah Ransome, the daughter of his previous boss. It is just coincidence that Suffolk Street was a short distance away from his new factory. John Hodgkin specialised in steam operated pumps, and soon established a reputation in this line. In 1858 he sold the business and moved on to bigger engineering ventures in London and Reading. Although he was a very successful engineer and businessman, John Eliot Hodgkin, who died in 1912, became better known as a collector of rare books and manuscripts.

“Suffolk Works” continued as an iron foundry specialising in steam engines, steam pumps and hydrants under the ownership of Charles Walter May and George Mountain, trading as “May & Mountain”. In 1881 this company went into liquidation. A Scottish engineer, Andrew Shirlaw, acquired “Suffolk Works”. He is described as a toolmaker, and manufacturer of steam and hand-powered lifting gear. Later, around 1884, he started to produce the Spiels petroleum spirit engine, under licence from its German owner.

Indicative of the industrial nature of Berkley Street in 1889 are the surrounding factories: a Wire & Nail Works, Sword & Matchet (old spelling for machete) Works, Galvanized Iron Works, Tube Works, and Carriage Works. However, in 1890 Shirlaw & Co. moved the “Suffolk Works” from Berkley Street to Oozells Street into a three-storey building built in about 1860. This was all of 100 yards away in what was really a continuation of Berkley Street, across the other side of one of the main thoroughfares of Birmingham (Broad Street).

Suffolk Works, 15/16 Oozells Street: Shirlaw & Co. ceased trading around 1896, and in 1900 an electrical engineer, H.H.Berry, acquired Suffolk Works, Oozells Street, where he started to manufacture electrical accessories. At the time functional electric fires and radiators were perfectly suitable for heating the working environment, but in the comfort of their homes the public wanted open fires. When Berry developed pneumonia, his doctor ordered his open fire to be replaced by a dust-and-soot-free radiator. As Berry convalesced, he soon missed his open fire and began to plan an electric substitute. In 1916 he patented the first electric ‘flicker’ fire; the effect was produced by a small fan driven by the heat rising from a coloured lamp bulb. In 1917 he formed Berry’s Electric Ltd, and in 1920 the Magicoal electric fire was launched with a coke-and-glass mixture moulded by hand to resemble coal. The new coal-effect electric fire soon caught on as it gave the impression of a traditional open hearth for homes, and H.H.Berry had started a new industry at his Suffolk Works. The success of the new invention brought the need for new modern premises, and in 1920 Berry’s Electric Ltd moved to the wider spaces of Hall Green.

“Suffolk Works” continued to house various manufacturing and engineering companies through to 1974. However, a 19th century building was now of limited use for modern industrial use, and it became more of a warehouse and storage facility. Nevertheless, although empty, in 1982 it was considered worthy of listing for preservation as a typical 19th century factory. It is described as “a three-storey red brick building on a blue engineering brick plinth, a slate roof with projecting cornice moulding”. (An “engineering brick” is a type of brick used where strength and low water porosity resistance are needed.)

At this time Birmingham City Council was developing its inner city regeneration plan, and the area around Oozells Street was occupied by derelict factories. An application to demolish Suffolk Works was made in 1985 and rejected. Thus, the building was saved, and from 1993 onwards it was re-developed as part of Brindleyplace (named after the 18th century canal engineer James Brindley). Brindleyplace is an award-winning large mixed-use canalside development of office blocks, public open spaces, restaurants, bars and shops in the centre of the city. Today “Suffolk Works” (although no longer referred to by that name) is one of the smaller high-rise buildings now occupied by offices, with restaurants and retail outlets at ground floor level, located on Oozells Square within Brindleyplace, Birmingham.

Suffolk Works, Sheffield, England & the “Suffolk Knife”

Sheffield in Yorkshire, England, has been the home of cutlery in Britain for over 700 years. The first recorded mention of Sheffield cutlery is in the inventory of the possessions of King Edward III in the Tower of London in 1340. In the 1380s Chaucer wrote about a Sheffield knife in the Reeves Tale.

Thomas Turner established his knife manufacturing company in Sheffield in 1802 and moved to a workshop on Norfolk Street in 1824. A new plant was built on Suffolk Road in 1834 and hence was known as “Suffolk Works”. Thomas Turner & Co soon became one of the most important cutlery firms in Sheffield, although the company mixed steel and tool manufacture with knifemaking. The company made a large range of goods including table knives, saws, files and edge tools. Like some of the other larger cutlery firms, it also produced and forged its own crucible steel using imported Swedish bar iron.

The company supplied the Royal Navy with open razors until 1890, and exported its knives across the British Empire. Of particular significance was the “Suffolk Knife”. This table knife became renowned for its resilience in regular use, and the fact that its handle stayed on (see advertisement). The blade was made of steel and was joined to a stag haft (handle). The making of stag and horn hafts attached to knives, forks and open razors was a huge industry in Sheffield. Stag was a very popular choice as it was cheap, durable and attractive.

The Turner family was involved in the business until 1893 when it was sold to other parties. By the early 1900s it had increased in size by merging with the cutlery firms Wingfield, Rowbotham & Co and Joseph Haywood & Co. This increased its number of employees from 300 to 1,000 to become one of the largest cutlery factories in Sheffield. A souvenir publication dating to around 1903 notes that 18,000 machine forged table knife blades were being produced at Suffolk Works each week. The Turner name was retained by the new owners until 1919, but the company did not survive the Depression and went bankrupt in 1932. The Suffolk Works were taken over by Viners of Sheffield but it was finally cl osed in 1953. The factory was demolished in 1970.

This knife and fork are of the kind that would have been found on the dinner table of an average working home in the 1890s. The price varied according to the thickness of the stag handles.

(For details of Suffolk Road & Suffolk Lane in Sheffield, see Places Associated with the Noble Houses of Suffolk, above)

East Suffolk Road & East Suffolk Park, Edinburgh, Scotland

East Suffolk Road in the Newington area of Edinburgh, Scotland, is about 2 km south of the city centre. It is the eastward extension of Suffolk Road, the name of which is derived from the Earl of Suffolk (see Places Associated with the Noble Houses of Suffolk section, above). It is situated in the historic Craigmillar Park Conservation Area.

This area south of Edinburgh was open farmland until the 1850s. It was never under single ownership, but was divided by the Pow Burn. The land south of the Pow Burn was in the possession of the Gilmours of Craigmillar and Liberton. This included the present Suffolk Road and East Suffolk Road. By 1886 the southern spread of Edinburgh had reached the Pow Burn. However, Sir Robert Gilmour had realised that there was a demand for villa type accommodation by the wealthy merchants of the city, and he laid out plans for such housing on his land south of the Pow Burn to the west of the main road, which was soon to be renamed Craigmillar Park. After 1888 the “West Craigmillar Park” development commenced, including Suffolk Road.

To the east of the Craigmillar Park road, Sir Robert Gilmour planned a crescent-shaped communal garden to be known as East Craigmillar Park. In early 1895 he leased the land to form a 9 hole golf course and a small pavilion was erected, designed by the famous architect, Alexander Lorne Campbell. In 1904 the golf club moved to another site but the pavilion and playing field was retained for the use of other sports clubs, including St Margaret’s School that had opened in East Suffolk Road in 1890.

St. Margaret’s School was one of Edinburgh’s leading private schools based at 4 East Suffolk Road. The curriculum was based on the Scottish education system. St. Margaret’s was founded in 1890 by James Buchanan. He initially named his new school The Queen Margaret College for Young Ladies. The inclusion of the word College in the name was to emphasise that secondary education was available. Mr Buchanan died suddenly in 1897, aged only 48. Mr Buchanan’s wife, Mrs Annie Buchanan, was appointed as Principal and, despite having a young family to look after, threw herself into the role. She remained in the post for over 30 years, and during her tenure of office, St. Margaret’s became one of the leading schools in Edinburgh. In 1903 the school was the first independent school in Edinburgh to offer a “Leaving Certificate”. New buildings were built along East Suffolk Road, and others acquired, including the Craigmillar Park Church (renamed Buchanan Hall) in 1965. However, it was suddenly announced in June 2010 that the school was going into administration and would be shut down at the end of that month. This was because of debts built up by the school trying to maintain high staff numbers with a low pupil intake. Attempts to save the school failed. It is now being sold off in separate lots, but as many of the buildings are excellent examples of late Victorian period architecture, they are to a large extent protected from modern re-development.

Craigmillar Park Church was built in 1898. The building became Buchanan House, part of St. Margaret’s School, and is now a protected historic building. Following the school’s closure, it has become the Iqra Academy (mosque).

On the Craigmillar Park Road adjacent to Suffolk Road and opposite the school was the Suffolk Hall Hotel. This was a Victorian town house with large grounds built in 1877 before Suffolk Road and East Suffolk Road had been developed. It was obviously not called by this later name then, but was known as “The Firs”. It was converted into a hotel some time between 1947 and 1954 as an Edinburgh map of the latter date shows the building named accordingly, whereas on a 1947 map it was still “The Firs”. Most sources indicate that this conversion occurred in 1976, but that was obviously only a renovation of the existing building. It took the name “Suffolk Hall Hotel” from the prestigious surroundings in which it was located. In June 2002 the hotel closed down, but the property was bought by St Margaret’s School for use as dormitories for the girls. In June 2011 the property was taken over for use as a nursery school and playground, and continued to carry the county name as Suffolk House Nursery Day Care. In June 2016 this changed its name to St Margaret’s Nursery & Preschool, offering full-time and part-time placements for children aged from birth to 5 years.

At the turn of the 20th century there was only limited provision for accommodating the increasing number of female students attending the educational institutes in Edinburgh. The possibility of providing hostels for women students was first raised as early as 1906, and the Edinburgh Provincial Training College (later the Moray House College of Education, which ultimately became part of Edinburgh University) joined with four other educational bodies to set up a charity for this purpose. It was agreed that one large scheme was preferable to a number of smaller hostels. In 1913 the charitable association purchased approximately 19 acres of Sir Robert Gilmour’s land at East Craigmillar Park, including the adjacent playing fields and pavilion. Three hostels were built accommodating 156 students which were opened in 1916. The East Suffolk Road Hostels at 8 East Suffolk Road, Newington, Edinburgh, were the first purpose built halls of residence developed exclusively for women students in Scotland.

The halls of residence in a sheltered rural setting with high quality views towards the city of Edinburgh, overlooking the playing fields, made a significant impact on East Suffolk Road, and prevented it being swallowed up by later urban development. After World War II the East Suffolk Road Hostels were renamed Moray House Newington Campus. When it eventually closed in 1997, the property was sold to developers. An application was made to re-develop the hostels and also to build 58 housing units on the playing field, which would have involved the permanent loss of this valuable green space, as well as the demolition of the historic Pavilion. Protests led to a public inquiry. In 2001 permission was given to allow the hostels to be converted into residential accommodation without altering the existing buildings and external architecture, but it was ruled that the playing field should remain as open space.

The former Moray House Newington Campus has now become East Suffolk Park. Historic Scotland eventually listed the Pavilion because of its unique design and association with Alexander Lorne Campbell. It can, therefore, no longer be subject to separate development, and in 2007 Edinburgh City designated the East Suffolk Road Playing Field as an official Open Space. The conversion of the former Halls of Residence into multiple apartments took place from 1997 to 2004. Some of these were sold as permanent residences and others became holiday flats, the latter known as Suffolk Park Apartments in Carlisle House, East Suffolk Park. The apartments include 2 bedrooms, a living room and kitchen with dining area. The properties have access to a tennis court, a garden and there is free car parking, all within 3 km from the city centre.

Suffolk Street – The Heart of Viking Dublin, Ireland

The area of Suffolk Street (Sraid Suffolc) in Dublin, Ireland, has played a vital administrative, commercial and cultural role in Dublin’s history for over 1,000 years. Suffolk Street itself runs from Grafton Street, one of the two principal shopping streets in Dublin city centre, in the south, to Church Lane and College Green, in the north. Trinity College and the former Irish Houses of Parliament are located in College Green, which is also the major assembly point for political rallies and demonstrations.

Although there were small settlements in this part of Ireland before the coming of the Norsemen (Vikings), it was the latter that founded the modern city of Dublin. The Vikings had established temporary camps in the area during their raids in the ninth century, but in 914 they arrived to settle in a place close to the sea. The area they chose was just to the south of today’s College Green, and the site of the Viking assembly mound or Thingmote, was at the intersection of today’s Church Lane and Suffolk Street. This Thingmote was an earthen terraced mound which stood about 40 feet high and had a circumference of 240 ft. This was the place where the Viking Kingdom of Dublin held its assemblies, passed laws, enjoyed tournaments, and may also have been a place of ritual sacrifices. Excavations in Suffolk Street have unearthed weapons from the Norse period. In 1857 workmen in Suffolk Street also discovered a cist grave containing the skeleton of a man and two copper axe-heads dating to about 1800 BC. This would seem to indicate that Suffolk Street had been a ceremonial site before the arrival of the Vikings, so the latter may have adapted an existing important location for their Thingmote.

In 1172 King Henry II of England had a temporary palace built there so that he could entertain and receive the submissions of the Irish chieftains. In later medieval times it served as a place for public entertainment and sometimes public executions. In 1240 there is record of a road leading to Hoggan Green which was named as “Teigmote”. Hoggan Green was an earlier name for College Green and “hoggan” is from Old Norse “haugar” meaning mounds. This indicates an ancient area of significance with a number of small mounds surrounding a larger special mound. By 1647 the smaller mounds had been destroyed, but the larger mound at today’s Suffolk Street was described as “the fortified hill near to the College”.

In 1681 the mound was levelled by Sir William Davis, the City Recorder and Chief Justice of Dublin, since he wanted to extend his property in this direction, and a thoroughfare is recorded there in 1682 as “Suffolk Street”. This was named after the Earl of Suffolk. The Earl of Orrery was in some way associated with the property. He either owned part of the land, or had helped finance the levelling of the mound. He was the grandson of the 2nd Earl of Suffolk; his mother, Lady Margaret Howard, being the Earl’s daughter. She had married the Irish peer, Roger Boyle, the 1st Earl of Orrery.

In the 18th century Suffolk Street was much sought after as a commercial and residential area. Today it is still prime property. It is particularly noted for its traditional Irish bars and restaurants. O’Neills Bar and Restaurant at 2 Suffolk Street (see photo, left) has existed as licensed premises, in addition to being a grocer and tea, wine and spirit merchant, since at least 1755 when the Coleman family operated it. The pub was purchased by the Hogan Brothers in 1875, and it became “O’Neills of Suffolk Street” once the O’Neill family purchased it from the Hogans in 1927. It is probably one of Dublin’s most famous, historic pubs, renowned for its ageless character and numerous alcoves, snugs, nooks and crannies, with traditional Irish folk music being played every night. It is now one of Dublin’s “protected structures”.

The other notable hostelry on Suffolk Street is O’Donoghue’s Bar which had previously used the ancient Norse name of The Thingmote, and before that was known as the Suffolk House (see Suffolk in the Names of Public Houses, Bars & Inns, above).

Molly Malone of Suffolk Street

A welcome addition to Suffolk Street is the statue of “Molly Malone”. The song “Molly Malone” (also known as “Cockles and Mussels” or “In Dublin’s Fair City”) is set in Dublin, Ireland, and has become that city’s unofficial anthem. The song is not recorded earlier than 1876, when it was published in Boston, Massachusetts, but it is probably based on an older Irish folk song since that community is strongly represented in Boston. The song tells the fictional tale of a street vendor in Dublin who died young of a fever in the 17th century. There is no evidence that the song is based on a real woman in the 17th century or at any other time. Nevertheless, legend has it that this lady was a hawker by day and a hooker (part-time prostitute) by night.

*Photo attributed to Marek Śliwecki (Wikipedia)*

During the 1988 Dublin Millennium celebrations, it was decided to celebrate this Molly Malone. The problem was that there were several “Molly Malones” born in Dublin over the centuries, but no evidence connected any of them to the events in the song. The Millennium committee decided upon a Mary Malone who died on 13 June 1699 and, henceforth, this day is celebrated as “Molly Malone Day”. A statue representing Molly Malone was unveiled on Grafton Street in 1988. Because of a road realignment at this original site, in July 2014 the statue was relocated to Suffolk Street, in front of the Tourist Information Office.

The statue (right) portrays Molly as a busty young woman in 17th-century dress. Her low-cut dress and large breasts led to the statue being christened as “The Tart with the Cart”. Apparently tourists rub the statue’s bosom area “for luck” and the patina has worn away somewhat, thus highlighting that area to even greater effect.

Suffolk Street, Kells, County Meath, Ireland

The word “Suffolk” in Suffolk Street, Kells, is an anglicisation of the ancient place name Siofoic, the meaning of which is today uncertain, but it is known that it was a place located in Kells, County Meath. The Annals of the Four Masters, dating from the 12th century, mentions a fire in 1156 burning the area of Kells from the cross of the gate to Siofoic. Siofoic is also mentioned in old Irish land charters. The name may be derived from the existence of a suidhe, a fairy mound, possibly a prehistoric tumulus, at the junction of Suffolk and Farrell Streets. A hillock at this site was cleared away in the early 19th century with the widening of Farrell Street. The street name in Irish is Sráid na Siofóige. The anglicisation of the name had taken place by 1663 when Suffolk Street is recorded on a street map. The famous Book of Kells is also said to have been found on Suffolk Street, Kells, in 1660 when it was sent to Trinity College, Dublin, for safekeeping.

The town of Kells lies approximately 40 miles northwest of Dublin. The name is derived from the Irish Ceann Lios, meaning Head Fort.

Suffolk Park, El Paso, Texas, USA

Suffolk Park is a one acre area of open space with trees, situated on Suffolk Road at the junction with Edgemere Boulevard, in the city of El Paso, Texas. This residential area was developed from 1960 to 1963 on open land south of the International Airport. Many of the other streets in the vicinity seem to have either Irish or Scottish place names, so why the name Suffolk was chosen is a mystery at present. If anyone knows anything, please email info@planetsuffolk.com

Suffolk Mills, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA

The building of the Suffolk Mills on the banks of the Merrimack River in Lowell, Middlesex County, (around 25 miles from Suffolk County) was completed in 1832; the year after the Suffolk Manufacturing Company had been incorporated. Ten years prior to this, the river had been chosen as a prime site for mills due to the abundant waterpower produced by the Pawtucket Falls; through which the river cascades 32 feet over the course of a mile. In 1822 the construction of a power canal system had been initiated, with the first mill being built in the following year. By 1823 Lowell was the leading producer of textiles in the USA. The canal system would eventually stretch more than five & a half miles & included the Western Canal, also known as the Suffolk Canal, due to the Suffolk Mills being located on its west bank.

The Suffolk Manufacturing Company had been established in 1831 by the firm A & A Lawrence & Co, which itself had been founded in Boston, Suffolk County in 1814 by brothers Amos & Abbott Lawrence (who incidentally were descendants of one John Lawrence, who was born at Wissett in Suffolk, England & had immigrated to America in 1635). On the opposite bank of the canal, & built during the same period as Suffolk Mills, stood Tremont Mills, which was also owned by A & A Lawrence. Forty 40 years later, in 1871, the two would combine to form the Tremont and Suffolk Manufacturing Company.

In the 1840s, Suffolk Mills’ British born engineer James Bicheno Francis, together with another engineer, Uriah Boyden, began experimenting with turbines instead of the previously used waterwheels, which greatly improved efficiency & led to the “Francis Turbine” being named in his honour. Four new turbines designed by Boyden were installed at Suffolk Mills in 1853, & these lasted until 1897, when smaller, yet just as powerful Francis Turbines were installed.

Today, the only surviving building from the original Suffolk Mills is the counting house; most other structures having been dismantled & rebuilt around the time of the Civil War, when greater profits could be made from selling raw cotton rather than woven cloth. The wheel pits, however, still exist.

The Tremont & Suffolk Manufacturing Company closed down in 1926, with Suffolk Mills being sold to the Nashua Manufacturing Company. The mill changed ownership several times thereafter, finally closing for business in 1981, at which time it was known as the Wannalancit Mill.

Today the Suffolk Mills Turbine Exhibit operates one turbine for demonstration purposes as part of the guided tour of the Lowell National Historical Park, which is run by the National Park Service. The turbine is housed in one of the original wheel pits that were constructed in 1853. Also on display is one of the hydroelectric generators that were installed in the early twentieth century.

Lowell National Historical Park was opened in 1978 & includes various sites around the city related to the textile industry & the canals. As well as the Suffolk Mill Turbine and Powerhouse, other features include Pawtucket Dam and Gatehouse, pathways along the Lowell Canal System, & the Boott Cotton Mill and Museum.

Suffolk Brewery, Christchurch, New Zealand

Situated in Barbadoes Street South in Christchurch, this brewery was one of the oldest in South Island, New Zealand, having been established in 1858 by Samuel Manning. Manning was born in 1841 in Suffolk, England, and educated at Needham Market, Suffolk. He accompanied his father to Lyttelton on the ship Egmont, which arrived in December 1856. Samuel and his father became engaged in the brewing business at nearby Christchurch, and Samuel started the Suffolk Brewery in 1858 and then the Christchurch Brewery in 1860.

It seems that Samuel Manning concentrated his efforts on the Christchurch Brewery and, from unpretentious beginnings of two men and a boy, he built a business that in 1865 became S.Manning & Co. when the Christchurch Brewery moved to Ferry Road. This developed into a large and important concern which he sold in 1882 but remained managing director of; filling that position until 1889. He sat on several community enterprises, was elected to the Christchurch City Council and served as mayor in 1890-91. Samuel Manning later retired from the brewing industry, and died in 1933.

Meanwhile, the Suffolk Brewery passed into other hands, successively Pitt & Harris, W.John Disher, and, in 1878, McIvey & Baird. These last two formed it into a company under the name of “The Suffolk Brewery Company, Limited”. It appears that the Manning family kept a majority shareholding in this company since a William Manning, possibly the son of Samuel, is known to be the owner of the company in 1891. By 1885 the Suffolk Brewery was leased to Scarlett & Co., another well-known Christchurch brewing company. The plant was capable of turning out about 2,000 hogsheads a year, and the quality of its ale is amply attested by the fact that the brewery obtained first and second-class medals at the annual local shows.

Scarlett & Co. obtained their own brewery and moved out of the premises, and it seems that the Suffolk Brewery declined thereafter. It was last heard of in 1891 when William Manning died and the trustees of his estate tried to sell it as a going concern. However, this did not materialise and the property on Barbadoes Street South was sold for other uses, the Suffolk Brewery passing into history.

The Prohibition movement was strong in New Zealand in the early 1900s and reached 49.7% in a referendum in 1919. This brought a decline in the brewing industry and by 1923 only two brewers were left in Christchurch: the Christchurch Brewery of S. Manning & Co on Ferry Road, and Wards’ Crown Brewery. In 1923 the largest brewers in the country closed ranks and amalgamated to form New Zealand Breweries. This resulted in the Christchurch Brewery being closed that year, and it was then used as a bottling plant and store. Finally, in 1940 the buildings were demolished and the last link with Suffolk was gone. The site is now the Christchurch City Bus Depot.

Suffolk Road, Vacoas, Mauritius

Suffolk Road, Vacoas is best known as the address of the famous golf club, the Mauritius Gymkhana Club. The club has the oldest golf course in the southern hemisphere and the fourth oldest in the world. The precise date when the Club was actually founded in not known as no documentary proof exists. However, historical records indicate that the club was founded on an informal basis and golf was played between 1834 and 1844. Thus Mauritius is the third country to have introduced golf in its modern form, after the United Kingdom and India. As with India the credit for this goes to the British military who usually brought their sporting activities with them at their garrisons throughout the British Empire. Correspondence dated 1849 to the War Office from the officer commanding troops in Mauritius, requested authorisation to start a club to provide recreational and sporting events for the officers on the island. This is the formal date of the opening of the then British Gymkhana Club on Suffolk Road (now renamed Suffolk Close). As its name implies, the club was chiefly for equestrian pursuits, particularly polo, but there was a 9-hole golf course. It was transformed into an 18-hole course in 1950. The club now has tennis courts, a swimming pool, squash courts, a gymnasium and a modern clubhouse.

After being colonised and abandoned by the Dutch, the island passed under French dominion in 1715 and was known as the Île de France. Following the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803, the security of the route to India and the Far East became a high priority for the British. To combat the privateers supplied and licensed by the French governor, an attack on the island was launched under Captain Willoughby in August 1810, but it was defeated. On 29 November 1810, led by General Abercrombie, the British launched a full scale invasion. After brief skirmishing, the British troops soon took possession of the island.

With peace in 1814 the island became a British colony and resumed its former Dutch name of Mauritius. A British garrison was maintained on the island with bases at various locations around Mauritius. Vacoas was no more than a small village at the beginning of the 19th century. However, the British soon realised the benefits of a base in a central position on the island on the high plateau that would be free from malaria, and they began building a military base at Vacoas soon after 1820. This, of course, attracted a population to support the needs of the garrison and a sizeable town grew round the base.

Suffolk Road gets its name from the 12th (East Suffolk) Regiment of Foot (see The Suffolk Regiment, above). In 1810 the British troops from India included the East Suffolk Regiment, and the Regiment remained the garrison force on the island until 1818. The First Battalion of the East Suffolk Regiment returned again for garrison duty from December 1837 to December 1847, and its Reserve Battalion from May 1843 to 1851. This was, of course, during the period when the British Gymkhana Club was established at Suffolk Road. The other two roads built around the garrison were also given names associated with the capture of the island: Willoughby Road, after the first unsuccessful attempt, and Decaen Road, after Charles de Caen, the defeated French governor of the island. (General Abercrombie had a settlement near Port Louis, the capital, rather than a mere road, named after him. This is now a district of Port Louis.)

In 1916 the Vacoas garrison became the Army HQ on the island. In 1960, the British Government decided to withdraw its garrison from Mauritius after 150 years of service in the island. On the departure of the British, the Mauritius Special Mobile Force was formed. The SMF is a paramilitary force; it is an integral part of the Mauritius Police Force with its main function to ensure the internal and external security of the island. It has taken over the former Army HQ. The British Gymkhana Club was renamed the Mauritius Gymkhana Club and membership is now open to all residents. Suffolk Road has been somewhat shortened by building work and is now Suffolk Close, but it remains the address of this prestigious club.

Suffolk Road (Triq Suffolk), Pembroke, Malta

Pembroke is a town on the northern coast of Malta. It is considered to be the country’s newest town, and has developed into a pleasant residential town rather than a tourist resort. The whole area was formerly a British military base from 1859 to 1979, complete with barracks, a hospital, cemetery, school and parade grounds. The first barracks were constructed between 1859 and 1862 overlooking St George’s Bay and were named after England’s patron saint, St George. Later, other barracks were built and were named after the patron saints of Ireland and Scotland, St Patrick and St Andrew.

The military base was named after George Augustus Herbert, the 11th Earl of Pembroke (1759-1827) by his younger son, Sidney Herbert, the then British Secretary for War 1859 to 1861. (Note that Wikipedia is incorrect in stating that “Pembroke is named after Robert Henry Herbert, the 12th Earl of Pembroke and British Secretary at War in 1859”. Robert Henry Herbert (1791-1862), after a dissolute youth and a scandalous marriage in Sicily, which both Sicilian and British authorities annulled, succeeded to the title but lived an irregular life in exile, and he never entered politics. It was his younger brother Sidney Herbert who took control of the family estates and finances.)

The 1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, was stationed in Malta from April 1897 to January 1899, but not at Pembroke at that time (see The Suffolk Regiment, above). They were stationed on the island again from November 1907 to January 1911. This time the battalion was in St Andrews Barracks, Pembroke. St Andrew’s Barracks were begun in 1901 and buildings were still being erected until the late 1920s. The barracks could accommodate at least 1000 infantrymen, their officers and spouses. The road alongside the barracks was named St Andrew’s Road (Triq Sant’Andrija in Maltese), and a road that came off it in the north at the highest point above sea level (64 metres: 210 feet) was named after the regiment: Suffolk Road (Triq Suffolk in Maltese).

In 1979 British Forces withdrew from Malta. All the land which had been acquired by the British during their period in Malta was relinquished to the Maltese Government. Pembroke remained neglected between 1979 and 1984. In 1983 the Maltese Parliament approved the sale or lease of land for the purpose of building residential houses. The first residents settled in 1986. In 1993 Pembroke was separated from St Julians and formally became a new town. Most of St Andrews Barracks were converted into a residential complex. However, as at 2015 there has been no residential development along Triq Suffolk. The only feature on the road is St Catherine’s High School. This is a prestigious, private independent educational institution teaching boys and girls through to the age of 16, originally founded in Sliema in 1909, but later relocated to Suffolk Road (Triq Suffolk), Pembroke.

Suffolk Hospital & Suffolk House, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Suffolk Hospital & Suffolk House are located in the city of Rawalpindi, in the province of Punjab in northern Pakistan. Suffolk Hospital is in Adamjee Road, with Suffolk House just around the corner in Sarwar Road. Rawalpindi is Pakistan’s fourth largest city, & is situated around 10 miles from the capital, Islamabad.

Although information is scarce as to precisely why the name Suffolk came to be used for these buildings, it seems that the most likely theory is that they were both established by the Suffolk Regiment, who were stationed on the North West Frontier from 1864, & after whom Suffolk Hill Piquet is named (although this is more than 100 miles to the west of Rawalpindi).

In 1851 the British Army established its general headquarters just south of Rawalpindi and this became a permanent cantonment for the Indian Northern Command. By 1901 the cantonment had a population of 40,611 and it was the most important military garrison in British India. As a cantonment, it formed a separate community from the native population, comprising military offices and buildings, and in particular the residences of the officers and their families. When not on duty in the field with their regiment, the officers lived with their families or in officers' messes within the cantonment. The Pakistan Army stills runs the area as a cantonment, and both Sarwar Road and Adamjee Road are within the cantonment. Their present names are of notable proponents of Pakistani independence. When under British control, Adamjee Road was known as Mackeson Road and Sarwar Road was known as Gwyn Thomas Road, both roads being named after British military commanders in the Indian Army.

From 1864 to 1907, one battalion or another of the Suffolk Regiment was in India on the North West Frontier, so it is highly likely that the regiment had a “quarter” within the cantonment. References can be found to the burials of men of the Suffolk Regiment at Rawalpindi, so it seems probable that they were based here, although we have been unable to definitely confirm this.

The British Army established the Military Hospital at Rawalpindi in 1857, but each regiment was also responsible for its own medical care and had their own hospitals. It is possible, therefore, that the Suffolk Regiment, soon after its arrival in India in 1864, established its own hospital in its “quarter”, with Suffolk House, which is known to have been in existence before 1910, constituting the regimental headquarters. Further details are scant, although it seems likely that Suffolk Hospital continued as it was, probably as an annexe to the Combined Military Hospital (from 1898 all the different regimental medical units were amalgamated).

In the early twentieth century, the British government in India gave Suffolk House as accommodation for the two young sons (Mohan Singh and Sohan Singh) of Sardar Sujan Singh; a client native ruler who had died in 1901, leaving his sons as wards of the British.

After independence it seems that the Pakistani government leased out these buildings. Today Suffolk Hospital is a private clinic, whilst Suffolk House now comprises the offices for Burshane (Pakistan) Ltd; a company founded in 1966 which is involved in the storage and marketing of LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) throughout Pakistan.

It must be reiterated that details concerning the history of Suffolk Hospital & Suffolk House are extremely hard to come by, & much of the information above remains speculation. If anyone can shed further light on this subject, please send details to info@planetsuffolk.com

Suffolk in South Africa

As well as Suffolk Hill near Colesberg in the Northern Cape (see Suffolk Hill, South Africa page, under Other Suffolks), there are five locations listed as farms in South Africa.

The names ‘Boer’ and ‘Afrikaaner’ frequently appear in this section. A short explanatory note may be useful. The Dutch East India Company used the Cape of Good Hope as a stop-over and resting place for their ships trading with Southeast Asia. From 1652 the Dutch began the first European settlement of South Africa. The name ‘Boer’ is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for ‘farmer’ and it is particularly used with reference to the Dutch speakers who left the British colonies to place themselves beyond the reach of the British colonial administration, and where they could continue the institution of slavery that was abolished by the British in 1833. The term ‘Afrikaaner’ is used in modern-day South Africa for the white Afrikaans-speaking population of South Africa (the largest group of white South Africans) encompassing the Boers and the other descendants of the Cape Dutch who did not leave the British colonies.

Suffolk Farm, Northern Cape: This farm is located in Northern Cape Province, around 10 miles east of Hopetown, just north of the Orange River and only a few miles west of the Northern Cape/Free State border. It is situated approximately 6 miles from the main N12 road. The area is at an elevation of around 3,450ft above sea level.

Charles Wheatley Mathews was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, in October 1824, where his father was the harbour master. Charles Mathews stowed away on a ship bound for Port Elizabeth in 1844 to avoid becoming a clergyman as his parents wished. He eventually settled at Colesberg where he got married and became the deputy sheriff. On hearing of the discovery of diamonds in 1867 at Hopetown, to the northwest of Colesberg, Charles moved there with his family. He was already an astute businessman and he opened up a trading store specialising in ammunition and weapons, as well as establishing the farm across the Orange River which he named after the county of his birth in England.

The original farm was named Farm Suffolk Albania. This indicated that it was in the district of Albania in Griqualand West, just outside the jurisdiction of Cape Colony and the British authorities. The name “Albania” has nothing to do with that country. It received that name because the early settlers were of British descent who came there from the Albany district around Grahamstown in Eastern Cape Colony. That district was given its name by Abraham Cuyler who was of Dutch descent born in Albany, New York. Albany in South Africa was settled in the 1820s largely by British immigrants. Griqualand West was proclaimed a British colony in 1873 and annexed to Cape Colony in 1880. The district of Albania ceased to exist in 1878 and that part of the farm’s name was dropped. Charles Mathews died in Kimberley in January 1881.

The Mathews family continued to live at Suffolk Farm for a couple of generations, but it was eventually sold to others. Today the farm is still operational with the same name, but commercially it trades under the name of ‘Orange View Farming’. It is also the base for ‘Suffolk Safaris’, which runs hunting and fly-fishing holidays.

Situated close to the Orange River, Hopetown was founded in 1854 and is named after Major William Hope, auditor general of the Cape Colony at that time. Established as a farming settlement, the town’s main claim to fame is that it was here, in 1867, that the first diamond in South Africa was discovered. Known as the Eureka Diamond, it was found by 15 year old farmer’s son Erasmus Jacobs. The diamond is now on display in the Kimberley Mine Museum in the city of Kimberley, around 75 miles north of Hopetown.

Suffolk Farm, Sekhukhune District, Limpopo Province: The few mentions of this place on the Internet place it in Mpumalanga Province (formerly the Eastern Transvaal) but this is incorrect. The provincial boundaries were changed by the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution on 1 March 2006 and the area south of Alverton to Burgersfort, originally in Mpumalanga, was transferred to Limpopo Province. Suffolk Farm is located in this area, approximately 170 miles northeast of Pretoria and around five miles northeast from the town of Burgersfort. The reason for the name Suffolk being used remains a mystery and there are no other farms bearing English county names in the vicinity, so it is presumed that it was settled by somebody from that county.

It is an isolated farm in the “bushveld” (‘thornbush field’). This is an elevated area of thornbushes and tall grasses where cattle herding is the principal economic activity. The farm is at 928 metres (3,044 feet) on the plateau leading up to Thionville Mountain, one mile to the southeast of the farm. The nearest populated place to the farm is the village of Motailane, 1½ miles to the northwest. The small town of Alverton is three miles further to the northwest.

Burgersfort is the main town in this region. The town was established around a fort that was built by the Boers in 1876. The town was named after the South African Republic (SAR) President, Thomas Burgers. The territory originally belonged to the Bapedi people, the largest Sotho group, under Chief Sekhukhune. Tensions arose between the Boers (who did not conceive of the blacks having any national rights in the European sense) and Sekhukhune who refused to pay taxes to the SAR government. In May 1876 the Boers launched an attack on Sekhukhune’s kraal. The attack failed and peace terms were agreed in 1877. Nevertheless, Boer farmers continued to devastate Sekhukhune’s land and provoke unrest. This became a justification for the British to annex the South African Republic (afterwards called Transvaal by the British) in April 1877. Following the annexation, the British also declared war on Sekhukhune and defeated him in 1879.

This area is located west of the Kruger National Park. Covering 7,523 sq miles, Kruger National Park is one of the largest game reserves in the world. The park boasts 147 species of large mammals; more than any other park in Africa. These include elephant, hippopotamus, lion, leopard, cheetah, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, buffalo, hyena & both black & white rhinoceros.

Suffolk Farm, Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District, Naledi, North West Province: As with its namesake above, we have not been able to find out why the name Suffolk is used. The farm is located near to the town of Vryburg.

Vryburg (‘Free Borough’) was founded in Bechuanaland by a group of Boers from the South African Republic (Transvaal) in 1882. Next year they declared the territory the Republic of Stellaland with Vryburg as its capital. Another group of Boer settlers set up a second republic called Goshen. The British saw this as nothing more than gradual Boer expansion towards the German sphere in South West Africa and promptly took action. In February 1884 the British declared the territories of both republics as British Protectorates. On 30 September 1885 Stellaland, Goshen and other territories were constituted as the Crown Colony of British Bechuanaland. In 1895 the colony was annexed to Cape Colony.

By 1900 there were over 400 farms in this area of which one was named Suffolk. This early record was not exactly for the reason we would appreciate. Suffolk Farm at Vryburg was used as a concentration camp. It is not generally known that the British developed the concept of “concentration camps” long before the Nazis thought of them. In the Boer War of 1899-1902, the Boers realised that they could not match the British in conventional battles so they resorted to guerrilla tactics, particularly hitting the railways to destroy British communications and supplies. The British responded from November 1900 by a scorched earth policy. They burnt the Boer farms and crops, seized the livestock and systematically rounded up the Boer women and children as well as black people living on Boer land, and sent them to 34 tented camps scattered around South Africa. This denied the Boer guerrillas access to the supplies of food and clothing they needed to continue the war.

In April 1901 the British decided that Vryburg should accommodate some of these people; there were separate camps for black and white detainees. The first camp for the white people was poorly situated in a hollow with bad drainage. A report on conditions showed that it was “badly neglected” with a high mortality rate of two deaths a day in a camp population of 760. A new camp was established for the whites in October 1901 at Suffolk Farm where conditions vastly improved. The camp population reached 1,152 people, all living in tents. The Boer War ended on 31 May 1902 and the camp at Suffolk Farm closed at the end of November 1902.

The District is named after Ruth Segomotsi Mompati (1925-2015). She was a South African politician and a founding member of the Federation of South African Women in 1954. In 1944 Mompati began teaching near Vryburg. This position was automatically terminated in 1952 when she got married, as the apartheid laws prohibited married black females from teaching. She joined the African National Congress in 1954. In 1990 Mompati was chosen to be part of the ANC delegation that negotiated the peaceful transition to majority rule with the South African government. She was elected as a member of parliament in South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, where she served in the National Assembly until 1996. She was appointed ambassador to Switzerland from 1996 to 2000. Upon her return from Switzerland she was elected mayor of Vryburg.

Suffolk Farm, Gauteng: We know a lot more about this Suffolk Farm in the Province of Gauteng. This is because it is the main subject of a book written by its owner and erstwhile farmer, Russell Kay. The book is entitled “Soap in the River: 9/11-The Day the Twin Towers Collapsed on Africa” (publisher: Xlibris Corporation, 2014).

It is a revealing and true story of life in a small farming community. The author, Russell Kay, was a successful journalist from Margate in England. After one of his assignments he ends up in South Africa where he becomes a television director, and in 1986 establishes his own highly successful company, K4TV News, delivering documentary programmes to stations worldwide. After 10 years, he decides to retire to a ‘more restful’ enterprise - farming flowers for local and international markets. Russell, without any farming knowledge, buys a run-down farm of about 30 hectares at Hekpoort in the Magalies valley just west of Johannesburg and Pretoria. The farm is called “Doringklip” which means ‘thorny rock outcrop’. This just about sums up the land which he has purchased; it is described as being covered ‘almost entirely in rocks and thorn trees’. However, Russell is ever the optimist and he renames it “Suffolk Farm” because he envisages it can be turned into a ‘soft and green and peaceful place, just like Suffolk in England’.

The author’s family are the only English speakers in a community of ultra-conservative Afrikaaners. Their attempts at social adventure, sophisticated floriculture and animal husbandry are sometimes ill-advised, and often doomed to failure. There is political corruption and a farm murder. There are events of incredible and embarrassing naiveté. Despite it all and against the odds - they succeed in establishing a flourishing chrysanthemum farm. In 2001, the farm suffers from the knock-on effect of the World Trade Centre terrorist attacks which reach across the world to engulf them and their enterprise as their markets are lost and financing from the banks is withheld. This is basically where the book ends - in failure. However, since this disastrous venture, Russell Kay has turned his hand to construction and become a master builder. Today, he runs the Penda Construction company which is located at Suffolk Farm, Patata Draai, Hekpoort, Gauteng Province. As at July 2021 this company was listed by the South African equivalent to Companies House in the UK as “Inactive because of no Annual Return being submitted”.

Suffolk Farm, KuGompo (formerly East London): This was the location of the first farm of John Gordon Sprigg (1830-1913), four times Prime Minister of Cape Colony in 1878-81, 1886-90, 1896-98 and 1900-04. He was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, and attended Ipswich School. His fragile health caused him to emigrate to Cape Colony in 1858 to recuperate, and here he decided to settle. He acquired a free farm in the territory that was known at the time as British Kaffraria and began to get involved in the local politics. In 1866 British Kaffraria was annexed to Cape Colony and in 1869 Sprigg became the member of the Cape Parliament for East London. He remained the member for that seat until 1904 and again from 1908 until his death in 1913.

The farm lay to the north of East London and was named after the home county of Sprigg. In the 1870s he moved his family across the River Kei near to Komga, 47 miles northwest of East London, where he established another farm he named ‘Sunnyside’. This farm was near the major British camp located at Komga and, thus, provided some protection to the British settlers who moved there. This was on the west bank of the River Kei which was the boundary between the Cape Colony and the part of Kaffraria which was inhabited by the Xhosa people and still independent. Sprigg’s farm was mentioned in the Cape parliament as one of those under threat during the Ninth Xhosa War (1877-1879). This final war basically brought all the former independent black kingdoms in today’s Cape Province under British control.

Sprigg later moved to Vredenburg on the west coast of Cape Province where he died in 1913. Sunnyside Farm was either sold or rented out by the 1890s since none of the Sprigg family was living there then.

‘Suffolk Farm’ is located in Bramleigh Road, Summer Pride, a suburb of the city of East London (renamed in September 2021 to KuGompo) in Eastern Cape Province. Today it is a small area of light industrial units all of which have the address of ‘Suffolk Farm, Bramleigh Road, Summer Pride, East London 5247’. There was a ‘Suffolk Farm Pet Hotel’ comprising kennels and a cattery on this site. This was operational from 2007 to 2011, owned by two general practitioners, Dr Roger and Dr Michelle Walsh. The outfit has since been bought by other persons and today retains the name but is at a different address in East London. Whether it still operates as kennels and a cattery is unclear.

Founded in 1847, East London is today a city with a population of over 400,000, renamed in 2021 as KuGompo. It is located on the Indian Ocean and is South Africa’s only river port, being situated between the Nahoon and Buffalo rivers. (For further information on East London see Origins of Road Names sub-page on Roads Named Suffolk page.)

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Suffolk in Zimbabwe

As far as we can ascertain, the name of Suffolk has appeared in, at least, four different places in Zimbabwe. This was when the country was known as Southern Rhodesia. The name is still in existence in three of those locations. It has been difficult to find out much about the origins of each specific Suffolk, and if anybody can provide further information, please email details to info@planetsuffolk.com.

Given the political situation in Zimbabwe and the sensitivity of the land issue, it is inevitable that we provide a background as to how this has affected the Suffolks in that country. The information given below is in the probable chronological sequence of the naming of these Suffolks.

Suffolk Mine: The background to the mining industry in Zimbabwe is also the story of the British involvement in the country. Cecil Rhodes, the English-born South African businessman and mining magnate, was also an ardent believer in British colonial imperialism. In 1888 he had acquired the mining rights, but not the settlement rights, to the land that became Southern Rhodesia from the Matabele King Lobengula. It was believed that the rich, gold bearing rocks found in South Africa extended into Matabeleland. The hidden agenda was to secure this territory for the British before the Germans, Portuguese or Boers.

In 1890 a military force, the Pioneer Column, was raised by Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa Company (BSAC) in order to annex the territory. This was rapidly achieved through the use of superior weapon technology. Each Pioneer was given the right to 15 mining claims and a 3000 acre farm. The latter provision was questionable since the Company could not give valid title to the land. Since farming was the less glamorous of the two, it did not matter in these early days of white settlement. The gold claims were legally valid, but the Company retained a 50% interest in the proceeds. However, the Rhodesian goldfields failed to yield commercially viable profits for the larger shareholders that had invested in the BSAC. Large scale workings were uneconomical, the gold deposits were scattered and the ore of low quality. In 1903 the London market for Rhodesian mining shares collapsed.

From 1903 the BSAC encouraged small mine workings to operate on a royalty basis in an attempt to recover some of its original heavy outlay. A prospecting licence cost £1, and after locating a claim it cost another £1 to register it. Thus a gold mine could be owned for the sum of £2. The mine owner had to transport and erect the mill and machinery, and operate the mine himself with only the help of native labourers. Nevertheless, by 1909 there were over 500 small mines being worked.

In the magazine “Rhodesiana” (No.26, July 1969), H J Lucas writes an article on the “Early Days in a Small Mine Working”, and he records that he visited the “Suffolk Mine at Belingwe” in 1910. We have not been able to find out anything more about this particular mine. The owner probably came from Suffolk, but we really have no idea. The Belingwe district has been renamed Mberengwa district today, and is found to the east of Bulawayo. Small claims mines were scattered around the district. The greenstone belt here produces gold, copper, iron ore, asphalt and emeralds. It is presumed that the “Suffolk Mine” was a small gold mine since heavier and more expensive equipment would have been needed to extract copper or iron, and both asphalt and emerald mining came later than 1910. The mine probably closed as soon as the veins were exhausted. It is no longer listed as a mine in Zimbabwe.

Suffolk Farm: Located in the Marondera District of the province of Mashonaland East, Suffolk Farm was one of the small farms on the Mashonaland Plateau east of Salisbury (Harare) occupied by white settlers in the early years of the 20th century. It survived from 1908 to 2005 when it was taken over by ZANU-PF supporters as part of the “fast-track resettlement programme”. From 2010 it has been re-designated as a populated place named Suffolk. It has, therefore, been given a separate page where the history and background can now be found (see Suffolk, Zimbabwe page).

Suffolk Road, Harare: This is a main road that runs through the suburb of Strathaven and it forms the western boundary of the suburb of Avondale West in the north of Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe.

The original settlement at Harare was established in 1890 by the BSAC as its administrative centre around a small fort called Fort Salisbury. In 1906 legislation prohibited blacks to settle in the municipality other than those living at their place of work, i.e. servants to the whites. The settlement was named Salisbury, and became the capital city of Southern Rhodesia. It remained a white settlement primarily concerned with administration, finance and commerce.

Avondale, 4 kilometres to the north of Salisbury, was the capital city’s earliest suburb, laid out in 1903 around a dairy farm that was established in 1894 to provide fresh milk to the fort. Up until 1934 Avondale was a self-contained village estate, separate from Salisbury. Both communities were laid out in a conventional grid pattern. In 1931 the village board voted to merge with the municipality of Salisbury. In the three years prior to integration, the municipality of Salisbury built wider roads, planted trees and put in street lighting to replace the gravel roads and dirt tracks that had hitherto been the main lines of communication between the two. At the same time low density white settlement was established to the northwest of Avondale on land outside the municipality boundaries. Privately owned farms were bought up by land speculators, and sold to white settlers in large plots of one acre sizes. This became Avondale West.

The grid pattern was continued in Avondale West. The roads running south to north were named after Scottish and Irish counties and towns, those running east to west were named after English counties, hence we have Surrey Road, Cornwall Road, Sussex Road, Devon Road and then Suffolk Road. It is not known for certain why the major road forming the western boundary of the new development was named Suffolk Road, but it is possible that it was in connection with the home county of the then governor of Southern Rhodesia, Sir Cecil William Hunter Rodwell (1874-1972). He was the son of a wealthy maltster who lived at Holbrook House in Holbrook, Suffolk, England. He served in the Boer War with the Suffolk Yeomanry, and later entered the colonial office seeing service in several British colonies. From 1928 to 1934 Rodwell was governor of Southern Rhodesia. His permanent home was at “Woodlands” in Holbrook, Suffolk, where he died.

Although Salisbury was primarily a white settlement, its development and growth as a capital city necessitated the use of black labour. The 1934 Labour Law prohibited blacks from entering skilled trades or professions or settling in white areas. The strict segregation of colonial planning relegated the black population to high-density, marginal townships to the south and west of the city centre. Their housing was intended only as temporary residence for men in order to discourage the migration of families and eventual permanent residence in the urban area. Salisbury thus developed along racial lines with large open spaces left as buffer zones to separate white and black communities. To the north and east of the city centre were the white residential suburbs, such as Avondale West.

Only in 1953 were some of the prohibitive restrictions relaxed, and in the 1960s higher income black households began to move into the low density northern suburbs, taking on long leases to circumvent land tenure laws that prevented them from owning land. Despite the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the white minority in 1965, it became apparent that black rule would become inevitable, and the 1970s saw an exodus of the white population because of the uncertainty. The growing black middle class moved into the northern suburbs. With the impending independence of Zimbabwe in April 1980, the racial land tenure legislation was abolished in 1979, making it possible for blacks to purchase plots in Avondale West and the other northern suburbs, gaining high cost housing at low prices as the white exodus gained momentum.

Suffolk Place, Bradfield, Bulawayo: Suffolk Place is a cul-de-sac coming off Hampshire Drive on a residential estate where 22 of the 32 roads are named after English counties, with the other 10 bearing Scottish, Welsh and Irish county names. Bradfield is an upmarket suburb in the city of Bulawayo comprising single-family homes with a commercial sector along Hillside Road where the Mater Dei Hospital, a shopping mall, doctors, dentists and other professional offices are located. It was built in the post-war boom years of the 1950s as a typical low-density, residential suburb for the white population. Since independence in 1980, housing is no longer based on race and many middle-class African families have moved into the suburb.

The suburb was named after Edwin Eugene Bradfield (1869-1951), one of the first Europeans to settle in the neighbourhood. He was born in Cape Colony, a descendant of an 1820 settler family. Bradfield came north to what was to become Rhodesia with the pioneer trek under Jack Carruthers in 1893. Like the other early white settlers, he was awarded large farmlands and trading privileges, and remained in the country until his death in 1951.

Dalham Hall: Another connection with Suffolk, England can be found in this country house and estate, located in the village of Dalham, near Newmarket and Bury St Edmunds. Dalham Hall is a Grade 2 listed building and 33,000 acre estate. The Bishop of Chichester purchased the estate in 1702, and commissioned the building of Dalham Hall. After passing through the bishop’s family, Cecil Rhodes bought it in 1901 on the evidence of photographs, and tales of its game shooting availability. Rhodes died in 1902 before taking possession or seeing the estate. However, his brother and family lived at Dalham and erected a village hall in memory of Cecil Rhodes. The estate was sold by the family in 1928.

Dunkirk Drive (Formerly Suffolk Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)

This story is taken from the Winnipeg Tribune of March 1941: “Dunkirk Drive formerly called Suffolk Street was a little winding street connecting the Winnipeg Canoe Club with the Elm Park District. For many years there were only three houses on it and the canoe club’s buildings. New houses built in the last two years have increased the number of houses to ten. It has been renamed in recognition of the evacuation of Dunkirk. Residents asked for the name change because few people had heard of Suffolk and it was invariably mistaken for “Selkirk” when directions or an address were given over the telephone.”

Dunkirk Drive is today part of Route 62, a major north-south arterial route in Winnipeg, Manitoba, that crosses the Red River. North of the river it is known as Osborne Street; the name changes to Dunkirk Drive when it enters the suburb of St Vital at the St Vital Bridge over the Red River, and changes again to Dakota Street when it crosses St Mary’s Road just north of the St Vital Centre.

St Vital was a separate municipality until 1 January 1972, when it became part of the City of Winnipeg as one of its southern suburbs. St Vital was home to many French-speaking settlers, and their heritage is reflected in the names of many of its institutions and streets. Seventeen percent of the population of this suburb spoke French as their language of choice in 2001. It could be said that the name change was a conscious decision to recognise the French heritage, although the English spelling was adopted rather than Dunquerque.

The land over which Suffolk Street was built is on the inside of a bend of the Red River, and it closely followed the curve of the river. It is not known how Suffolk Street got its name, but it was in place by 1911. It was originally part of a large park, known as Elm Park, created in 1890 by Albert William Austin and his Winnipeg Street Railway Company. A trolley line had been extended along what is now Osborne Street and, in an effort to increase revenue, Austin developed the park, with access via a pontoon foot bridge across the Red River. The park became a popular summer picnic spot. The popularity of Elm Park waned in the 1910s, and it closed in 1912.

In 1911 the Elm Park Company was formed to subdivide the property for residential homes. A new steel toll bridge was built to replace the pontoon structure and it was officially opened in March 1914. The narrow strip of land between Suffolk Street and the river was also the home of the Winnipeg Canoe Club and its pavilion from 1893 to 2000 (see photo, left, of the pavilion in 1915). When the club relocated in 2000 the property was purchased by a German company which converted the site into a golf course. The original building was torn down in 2007 to make way for a new retirement complex entitled “The Canoe Club”.

Suffolk Houses, Cardiff: A Tarnished Reputation

The name “Suffolk” is often given to buildings to invoke the imagery of a calm, peaceful abode, redolent of that county’s rural setting. The Welsh capital has two Suffolk Houses but, alas, a certain unpleasant aura hangs over both of them.

The more recent building bearing the name “Suffolk House” is in Trade Street. This is an inner-city location adjacent to the city centre built in the late 1890s on reclaimed marshland just south of Cardiff Central railway station. This was a dead-end street that was to be utilised for warehouses and yards, most of them being taken by Cardiff City Corporation for its local authority services such as the water works, health, and social services departments for use as depots and storage facilities. Where Suffolk House stands is at the bottom end of Trade Street and the site was first described as a “corporation yard” where the city corporation used to store its building materials. Later it became the Central Cleaning Depot for the corporation.

In the late 1970s the land was sold off for light industrial development and Suffolk House was built on the site as a two-storey office block (see photo, left) with three adjoining warehouses. Why the developer gave it this name is not recorded. However, it was unlikely to be mistaken for the original Suffolk House in Cardiff which had quite a different purpose. This Suffolk House has always been in commercial use and in 2013 it was allowed a temporary change of use for part of it to be used for gymnastics training.

In 2015 the first application to demolish the existing offices and re-develop the site for student accommodation was made (and withdrawn). In June 2017 an amended application was submitted to provide student residential accommodation in three blocks, two of eight storeys and one of six storeys, providing a total of 315 beds, laid out as individual studio rooms. Whether the name “Suffolk House” will be retained has not yet been decided. South Wales Police objected to the proposals as the site is within an area where there are instances of crime and anti-social behaviour and the Police consider students to be a ‘vulnerable’ group, particularly as “many students are from overseas and will have no idea or perceptions of local risks”. It was noted that the introduction of about 323 students will almost all be wholly reliant on walking or cycling for daily journeys to the city centre to reach public transport.

The Police Report to the planning committee had to consider that Trade Street “contains commercial and industrial premises with few habitable properties and has no permanent residents ….. The infrastructure of the area is not well developed for residential use, street lighting is poor and there are numerous dark hiding places provided by other properties which are located in Trade Street, which has no through traffic, therefore attracts unwelcome activities which bring with them certain risks….there is a serious problem in terms of illicit sexual activities (prostitution) and drug abuse. The area is a known pick up point for prostitutes and their services to clients can be observed taking place during the daytime. (Photographic evidence of the aftermath of both such activities was shown.) A number of serious incidents had occurred where local trades people had been intimidated by clients and drug abusers”. After a re-submission of the proposal that provided additional safety and security measures, the plan was approved on 25 May 2018.

In 2018 the owner of the land went into receivership and the land (with its planning permission to construct a student housing facility which expires in May 2021) was put up for sale. The property is currently occupied by two commercial occupants on short-term leases. The reputation of this quiet, isolated spot at the end of a dimly-lit cul-de-sac remains the same.

However, another developer who is also an operator of privately rented homes submitted new plans in March 2022 for the regeneration of the Suffolk House site. As part of these proposals, Suffolk House would be demolished and the site redeveloped with a prominent building comprising approximately 331 one, two and three-bedroom privately rented homes, with the name Trade Street Gardens.

The earlier Suffolk House in Cardiff is on Romilly Road. It is a Victorian white three storey villa with a classical porch, decorative bays and balconies above (see photo, right). There is also a two story annex to the rear which is in turn linked by an extension to a further two storey building. Suffolk House was built in 1865 by Benjamin Wright, a prominent Cardiff businessman, for his daughter’s wedding present. The name was given after the county in which Benjamin Wright (1799-1872) and his wife Eliza (1798-1867) were born, both at Redgrave, a village just south of the River Waveney in the northern part of Suffolk. The original occupation of Benjamin was that of a carpenter. The newly married couple came to Cardiff in the 1830s and Benjamin took advantage of the Industrial Revolution that was bringing trade and wealth to that city. By 1842 he was a notable manufacturer of agricultural machinery and he expanded his business into that of an ‘implement maker’, that is a general equipment manufacturer.

Over time the house passed through other hands and was last owned by Cardiff County Council. The house was used as a children’s home run by the council for those in need of protection. It was closed by 1997 but by then it had come under investigation for children who had been subject to sexual abuse while in the care of the local authority at Suffolk House. What made matters worse was an attempt to cover-up the scale of this scandal. It was not until 2006 that the local press and a concerned councillor managed to obtain the figures under the Freedom of Information Act. The Local Authority had paid more than £2,927,800 (US$ 3,789,683) in compensation to 162 victims that had been abused sexually whilst in care. Most of these had been housed at Suffolk House. Official figures from the Police show that 30 people were charged of whom 17 were convicted of offences including indecent assault, child cruelty and actual bodily harm.

Suffolk House continued to be part of the Social Services department and operated as a day care centre called Canton Family Centre (Canton is the district name) until April 2017 when the day care centre moved to a new modern building. Because the building was in a “poor condition” and had “extensive maintenance issues”, the local authority had no alternative operational use for Suffolk House. The building is located just a few minutes from Cardiff City Centre and was considered as “prime real estate” so it was no surprise that it was quickly sold at auction in 2017 for £800,000 and plans were soon put together to demolish the existing buildings and construct modern tower blocks.

It was then that years of protest and demonstrations began. The house is designated a Locally Listed Building by Cardiff County Council and is located in a Conservation Area, so it was not long before plans to demolish Suffolk House were scrapped on the premise that “Suffolk House and its grounds deserve protection as this property is a distinctive building that reflects the city’s history and heritage, and needs to be conserved for future generations to enjoy”. A revised plan was submitted in June 2018 that allowed the restoration of the original villa building of Suffolk House and the construction of seven three-bedroom family townhouses and ten one- and two-bedroom apartments. However, the devil was in the detail. It was proposed to fell the three mature trees fronting the site.

“This is one of the most controversial applications being heard since I was elected,’’ said one councillor as the proposals elicited numerous objections and protests by the local Canton residents for various reasons. But protecting the trees became the most significant one. It soon became a celebrated cause célèbre as campaigners came from far and wide; Suffolk House in Cardiff was on national television and in the national press. Felling trees directly contravened the council’s own environmental goals. The trees were an important part of the neighbourhood, adding to its character and visual appeal and large, mature trees such as these need to be retained to tackle the air pollution in this busy inner city district. Extinction Rebellion and Climate Change activists joined the demonstrations. Vigils were held and protesters chained themselves to the trees and settled in the branches. The campaigners managed to delay developers from felling them; the Council deferred planning permission. Meanwhile, Suffolk House, having been vacant for a while, was falling into disrepair. It had attracted squatters; alcohol consumption and illegal drug use in the house now became a problem.

Finally, the Council plucked up courage: protestors were removed; the trees were cut down in March 2020. Redevelopment of the site began. It was completed in 2022 with the house being converted into 10 apartments of one to two bedrooms and now named Suffolk House Apartments, while seven town houses were constructed in the grounds of the house and called Suffolk Mews.

Suffolk United Mine, Eaglehawk, Bendigo, State of Victoria, Australia

In the late spring of 1851 two women struck gold in substantial quartz reefs in the area of Bendigo Creek. The Bendigo goldfields were among Australia’s richest. At first the gold was easily extracted from superficial alluvial deposits on or just below the surface of the land. However, as alluvial gold became depleted, underground or deep mining began. This was harder and dangerous. Also, by the end of the 1850s new techniques were being introduced to gold mining, most importantly the construction of large, steam powered, quartz crushing works. The significant level of capital required to establish such plants, and to sink deep shafts to get at the gold, brought together wealthy investors who formed mining syndicates. The Suffolk United Company and later its subsidiary, the Suffolk Tribute United Company, were such organisations, issuing shares with the intention of paying dividends to their shareholders.

The Suffolk United Company was formed about 1869. Its major investor was George Lansell, a keen proponent of deep mining when others ridiculed the idea. In 1870 the Suffolk United Mine (colloquially referred to as the Suffolk Mine) was opened as a deep mine. This was located on the celebrated Garden Gully Reef, north of Sailor’s Gully Road, in the town of Eaglehawk, adjacent to the City of Bendigo. Gold had been discovered here in April 1852 by a party searching for a lost horse, but the alluvial deposits had soon been worked out. The mine operated from 1870 to 1918 to a depth of 1,873 feet, yielding 38,035 ozs of gold from 74,745 tons of quartz. By 1917 there were over 40 separate mining companies operating in a five mile stretch, each with its own board of directors, management and surface staff, often with only two or three underground workers. This was obviously inefficient and wasteful of resources, so the State of Victoria gave financial inducements for the companies to amalgamate. In 1917 the Suffolk United Company disappeared in one such consolidation of companies, and next year the mine was closed down. It is now a scheduled heritage site.

The sources do not indicate why “Suffolk” was chosen as a name for the company. However, there was a prominent, local man who had been born in the county of Suffolk, England. He was Steward James, the owner of the Albion Brewery of Sailor’s Gully. James was born in Suffolk in 1830. Arriving in Melbourne in 1853 he was successful in the gold fields and, in 1857, he purchased the brewery. He was the most successful brewer in Victoria winning no less than 41 prizes for his ales and porters, and he retained an interest in the mining industry. It is not known whether he was actively involved in the Suffolk United Company, but he is a possible candidate for providing this name. Steward James died in 1898.

Suffolk Mines and the Suffolk Mining Company - USA

With the opening up of the Keeweenaw Peninsula on Lake Superior for exploitation of its mineral riches in 1843, a group of Boston investors came together and formed the Suffolk Mining Company, taking its name from the county in which Boston was located. The original aim in its Articles of Association was specifically to mine and exploit copper deposits, but it also allowed for other minerals to be utilised. At the time of the company’s formation, thought had not been given to California and the western part of the USA. However, once news of California’s Gold Rush reached the East Coast, groups of men began forming associations to help defray the great expense of reaching the gold fields, and with the hope of having more success by banding together. The Suffolk Mining Company immediately widened its horizons to encompass the new opportunities offered in the American West. By 1849 the company had attracted 25 associates and it purchased a barque, the Drummond, to sail from Boston, round Cape Horn to San Francisco. It left Boston on 1st February 1849 and arrived at San Francisco on 1st September 1849. By the end of the year the company had 47 men in California, ready to participate in developing the mineral wealth to be found in the western USA.

Whenever the company laid claim to a tract of land that appeared promising, the name Suffolk Mine was invariably applied to the actual mine opened. However, as with any other company, the Suffolk Mining Company bought and sold its assets. At any time its operations could extend to cover other named mines. It was normal that, once a mine had been opened, it retained its original name. There were, no doubt, numerous attempts to develop a successful mine, but most of these were abandoned early, and have been forgotten. This entry covers only those that are recorded as “Suffolk Mine”.

Mention should also be made of a subsidiary company, called the Suffolk Placer Mining Company. This was big in the early 1900s in the Douglas Creek Gold District of Wyoming. “Placer mining” is the mining of alluvial deposits for minerals. This is done by open-pit mining using various surface excavating equipment. The name derives from Spanish, placer, meaning “sandbank”, since this is where the precious metals are found in deposits of sand and gravel in modern or ancient stream beds. By its very nature, deep shafts do not have to be dug in “placer mining”, thus the name Suffolk Mine would not be applicable to such operations.

By 1910 the era of the small venture capital companies, such as the Suffolk Mining Company, was over. Although the company may have continued in name for several more years, we have not found any reference to it after 1910, nor do we know when it finally dissolved.

Suffolk Mine, Praysville, Keeweenaw County, Michigan: The Chippewas would not release control of the Keeweenaw Peninsula to the USA government until 1843. Until then only Native Americans had been able to exploit the copper deposits known to be there. Thereafter prospectors and mining companies flocked to this territory and began searching for minerals. Metallic copper is found in all the rocks of the Keeweenaw formation in traps and conglomerates of the main series, but whether it is of commercial value is another matter. In 1847 the Suffolk Mining Company sent one of their operatives, called Prays or Prais, to the area. He opened a mine and erected a small copper smelter seven miles southeast of the Eagle River, near Lake Gratiot. A community called Praysville (or Praisville) was also established. The smelter was only fired once. The ore from Suffolk Mine was so high in iron content that it was not viable; the operation and community were abandoned within 18 months, being closed down in November 1848. The mine is located off Phoenix Farms Road, and the foundations of the buildings of Praysville can be seen off that road. (See also Suffolk Porphyry, below.)

Pioneer Suffolk Mine, Angels Camp, Calaveras County, California: Gold was found at Angels Creek and its tributaries in 1848, and the miners’ town of Angels Camp was soon after established there. As its name indicates, the Pioneer Suffolk was the earliest of the “Suffolk mines” to be opened in California, in 1850 about 4 miles west of Angels Camp. The claim was worked through a 187 foot vertical shaft. It was active as a gold mine until about 1900 and was then idle. The various mines in the area were frequently sold to other companies, and by 1900 the Suffolk Company had relinquished this claim, and it became known as just the Pioneer Mine. The claim was consolidated as part of the Angels Camp Deep Mining Company in 1920. The Pioneer shaft was then extended to a depth of 500 feet and a 20-stamp mill was erected. However, little production was made and the mill was sold in 1929 (see next item for definition of a “stamp mill”). It was never a very productive mine, but it was operated until about 1936, and the claim is still on record should it wish to be reactivated. It is today part of the Angels Camp Deep Mine complex. The closest populated place is Altaville, which is less than a mile away.

Suffolk Mine (later Smyth Mine), Angels Camp, Calaveras County, California: In 1878 another Suffolk Mine was opened about one mile west of Angels Camp, between that place and Altaville, in order to exploit the quartz deposits. It was operated by the Suffolk Gold Quartz Company and a five-stamp mill was also constructed on site, known as Suffolk Mill. A stamp mill crushes material by pounding rather than grinding; a “five-stamp mill” has five rows of heavy stamps in vertical shafts that are lifted at the same time by a rotating wheel and dropped onto the ore. Chas. Smyth & Co. bought into the Suffolk Gold Quartz Company soon after operations began, and the mine thereafter became known as the Smyth Mine, although Suffolk Mill retained its name. The mine was worked through a 500 foot vertical shaft. By 1896 the Suffolk Company had sold its share in this mine. All of the major mines were shut down during World War I, and there was some activity during the 1930s, but the mine has been idle since that period. The claim is still on record as part of the Angels Camp Deep Mine complex.

Suffolk Mine, Carson Hill, Calaveras County, California: Carson Hill is now a ghost town four miles southeast of Angels Camp, and was found at the same time in 1848. Quartz was first discovered in this locality in 1854 and a Suffolk Mine was opened ¼ mile to the east of Carson Hill to exploit this mineral. Nothing much was recovered except superficial finds, and the mine was closed in the later 1850s.Suffolk Mine, Weehawken District, Calaveras County, California: This mine is 10 miles northwest of Copperopolis. It is mentioned in the Transactions of the California State Agricultural Society of April 1863. Unlike most of the other mining areas in the county, the claim to fame here is not gold, but copper. In 1860 the second big discovery of copper ore in the region was found in what became known as Copper Canyon. By the end of the year a town had grown that was given the name of Copperopolis. The town grew rapidly, as there was a great need for copper during the Civil War to make bullets. The copper was sent to San Francisco, where it was loaded onto ships and taken around Cape Horn before finally arriving in smelters on the East Coast. This was also the period when the Suffolk Mine is known to have been operative. During the Civil War years, Copperopolis had a population of 10,000, much larger than any of the nearby gold camps. After the war ended, the expense of mining and shipping copper proved to be too high, and the price of copper dropped to 19 cents a pound compared to 55 cents during the war. This forced closure of many of the mines and the population of the town fell to 170 by 1870. In the 1880s a Boston company purchased the Union and Keystone mines and mining operations resumed. The sources for our information do not give the name of the “Boston company”, but it does sound very much like the Suffolk Mining Company. In 1899 a newly formed company, the Union Copper Mining Company, purchased all the original claims and most of the properties in town. Copperopolis still exists and in 2010 it had a population of 3,671.

Suffolk Mine, Nevada, San Joaquin County, California: A fatality in the Suffolk Mine, near Nevada, San Joaquin County, is mentioned in December 1868 in the Stockton Daily Independent newspaper. Gold was found in the San Joaquin Valley in late 1848. The mining community of Nevada no longer exists, not even as a ghost town.

Suffolk Drift Mine, Wahoo Mining District, Sierra County, California: Gold was first found in this county in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1849, and in the Wahoo District in 1882. A mine was opened by the Suffolk Drift Mining Company and worked from June 1882 to December 1883, employing up to 40 men. The company and mine probably received their name from H. Strange, the county clerk of Sierra County. He was born in Suffolk, England, in 1829 and emigrated to the United States in 1850. He reached Calaveras County in 1852 where he began mining. In 1854 he came to Sierra County where he continued his mining activities, settling at Downieville, just 12 miles south of the Suffolk Mine. He became county clerk in 1861 and continued in this office into the 1890s. Suffolk Mine never produced any worthwhile ores and was soon abandoned. It was sold soon after to the Feather Fork Gold Gravel Mining Company, and a claim under the name of Suffolk Mine was lodged by an individual prospector in 1898. A survey by the US Geological Survey in 2003 showed that the mine is still viable as “gold is present at a grade sufficient to have a strong effect on the economics of an excavation project”. The nearest places to the mine are now the ghost towns of Howland Flat and Port Wine beneath Table Rock. La Porte (population 26 in 2010), a census designated community, is the nearest inhabited place today.

Suffolk Mine, Ophir, San Mig uel County, Colorado: Suffolk Mine is located high on Silver Mountain at an elevation of 11,321 ft in the San Juan Mountains, a high and rugged mountain range in the Rockies in southwestern Colorado. The area is highly mineralised (the Colorado Mineral Belt), and figured in the gold and silver mining industry of early Colorado. Gold was first discovered in the valley in 1875 at a site called Howard’s Fork, and by the end of the year the mining settlement of Ophir had been established, taking its name from the Arabian city that was rich in gold. Most of the ore mined early from this district was rich in silver, and activity in the mining camp depended in part on the price of silver. The ore was shipped to Silverton, which had the nearest smelters available to Ophir, by mule trains across the Ophir Pass. By 1881 there were a number of small mines working the area, but the difficulty of shipping the ore out of the valley and the high altitude did not make it viable for larger mining companies to open up mines. The railroad reached this area in 1890, and this encouraged the opening of mines at a higher level since the ore could now be more easily transported from the valley. This is when the Suffolk Mine started production. Gold was the predominant metal extracted from the Suffolk Mine.

The mine was at five l evels reaching to the top of the mountain divide. The complexity of the fissuring meant that veins crossed and abruptly changed direction, and were found to be scattered around. One particular vein called the “Yellow Girl” was of very high grade and the most productive. The fact that the veins were so numerous made the extraction worthwhile. The Suffolk Mine has given its name to a geological feature known as The Suffolk Slump (see below). The peak year for gold production was 1900, and after that there was a general depletion in reserves, and people began leaving Ophir as mines began to close. In 1910 the Suffolk Mine ceased operations, and closed down. Large scale mining has ended in the region, although independent prospectors still work claims throughout the range.

In 1891 Ophir had a population of 400, but by the 1950s it had become a ghost town with only two residents. In 1970 there was only one resident. However, since 2000 the valley has experienced a revival, with people being attracted by the history and natural environment. It is now a tourist attraction, and several summer homes have been constructed there. In 2010 there were 64 houses with a population of 159.

Suffolk Shaft, Mumford, Springfield, Greene County, Missouri: This mine was operated by the Suffolk Lead and Zinc Mining Company. The company took its name from the birthplace of its major shareholder, Capt. Henry Peregrine Leader. He was born about 1839 in Suffolk, England, and was a captain in the Suffolk Regiment before emigrating to Canada in the early 1860s. (His son, also Henry Peregrine, was born in 1865 in Detroit and became a prominent commander in the British Army, also beginning his career with the Suffolk Regiment.) Earlier names for this mine were the Kershner Shaft, after the owner of the land, and Mumford Shaft, from the nearest settlement. The Suffolk Shaft is part of the Pearson Creek Mines Historic and Archeological District on the National Register of Historic Places, located five miles east of Springfield, MO along the watershed of the Pearson Creek.

Although lead in this area was known and worked in a small way by the Osage Indians and European hunters of this region, little mining was done in the area until after the Civil War. The lack of cheap transportation facilities did not make it worthwhile to work these mines until 1885. John H Kershner came with his family from Tennessee to Greene County, Missouri, in 1841 and bought a 200 acre farm which also encompassed several lead mines. His son, William H Kershner, opened the Suffolk Shaft in 1886 and leased the mine to the company. Lead and zinc mining peaked around 1912 and ended by 1920.

Suffolk Shaft, Joplin, Jasper County, Missouri: The Suffolk Lead and Zinc Mining Company also worked a zinc mine in the southwestern corner of Missouri, near the mining town of Joplin. As with the previous mine, although lead had been discovered in the Joplin Creek valley in 1848, it was not until after the Civil War that it became profitable to mine the ore. Mining began in this valley in 1871 and the town of Joplin was established in 1875, by which time there were numerous small mines in place, of which the Suffolk Shaft was one. In 1897 soaring prices and demand produced large profits, and Joplin became known as the “lead & zinc capital of the world”. In 1899 a group of Boston capitalists formed the American Zinc, Lead & Smelting Company and took over many of the smaller mines. We have not been able to confirm whether the Suffolk Shaft was one of them, but it does seem likely. Most of the zinc mines continued working until immediately after World War II.

Suffolk Porphyry

An alternative name for Praysville Porphyry, a mineral that occurs at the old Suffolk Mine location at Praysville, Keeweenaw County, Michigan (see above). The Keeweenaw rocks are from the Precambrian (1.1 billion years ago) and are along a fault boundary where a rift valley has been filled with intrusive igneous rocks and sediments. Porphyry is a variety of igneous rock consisting of large-grained crystals dispersed in a finer-grained, light-coloured felsite matrix. It is a purple-red stone, hence its name; “porphyry” is from Greek meaning “purple”. Porphyry deposits are formed when a column of rising magma is cooled in two stages. In the first stage, the magma is cooled slowly deep in the crust, creating the large crystal grains. In the final stage, the magma is cooled rapidly at a relatively shallow depth or as it erupts from a volcano, creating smaller grains. The porphyries found at the Suffolk Mine location are indicative of late Keeweenawan intrusions, and are distinguished from other porphyries by the larger size of their grains.

The Suffolk Slump

A geological feature named after the Suffolk Mine at Ophir, San Miguel County, Colorado (see above). The “Suffolk Slump” is a fault-block structure that has moved in relation to the neighbouring rocks. It is a wedge-shaped block, bound on the west and northwest by a fault-line that lies 300 feet from the Suffolk Mine and trends northeastwards until it meets another fault-line on the west side of Staatsburg Gulch that forms the eastern and northeastern edge of the block. The southern boundary of the block is an outcrop of Telluride formation. The “Suffolk Slump” comprises San Juan Breccia (Breccia is rock composed of broken fragments of minerals or rock cemented together by a fine-grained matrix); this dips in a southward direction, with the rocks being cut by a large number of faults caused by the movement of the block. It is not a landslide but the block has clearly moved along fault lines, causing it to “slump”. There is no obvious reason for this movement since the underlying Mesozoic formation is composed of hard, highly resistant, stable rocks.

Suffolk Mine, Smithfield, Isle of Wight County, Virginia - USA

Another kind of mining and a different derivation of the name are found in Virginia. As can be noted above, this location is not in the City of Suffolk in Virginia, so how does it get its name? The company is the Bay Sand Company Inc. and the product mined is sand. Where does the sand come from, since the location is not by the sea? From the Suffolk Scarp, hence the name of the mine (see Suffolk Scarp on the Suffolk, Virginia, USA page). In essence, this is a sand dune, perhaps 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide and about 20 to 30 ft (6 to 9 m) deep. Because of its compactible nature, sand from the Suffolk Scarp makes excellent fill material for contractors in the region. It requires less compacting, so it saves them time and money and another advantage is that this sandy material is much easier to work with during the wet season. In 1978 Henry Layden decided he did not want to have a desk job for the rest of his life, so he bought a backhoe and a small dump truck and started digging ditches, putting in septic tanks and doing odd jobs. In 1981 he got into the sand business first as Ivor Sand Company. In 1991 he incorporated it as a private company known as the Bay Sand Co. Inc. to focus on sand exclusively. It is a family-run business with a small, but loyal group of employees. There is plenty of sand for the time being, but some time in the future the company will need some new pits. Since it has acquired 141 acres of the Suffolk Scarp, this could be a long-term plan.

Lady Suffolk

There was a distinguished grey mare named Lady Suffolk. She was a true champion Standardbred, who raced under saddle and to sulky in the 1840s. In the early era of the trotting horses, this grey mare gained fame as a top competitor.

Lady Suffolk was originally the property of a Long Island liveryman. She was foaled in 1833 at Smithtown on the farm of Carl S. Burr, Jr. Her sire was Engineer II, her dam Jenny. She was a great-granddaughter of Messenger, the foundation sire of the Standardbred (see below). David Bryan bought the filly, who was pulling an oyster cart, when she was four-years-old. She was given the name “Lady Suffolk” after the place of her birth in Suffolk County, New York. She ran her first race in Babylon in 1838, winning her first victory for a purse of $11. She raced under saddle and won two out of three heats. Her first 50 races were under saddle, the next 112 were in harness. During her career, she was held in high regard for her speed and stamina. She pulled a heavy two-wheeled high sulky against the best trotters. Lady Suffolk is the first horse recorded as running a mile in less than two and a half minutes. It occurred on 4 July 1843 at the Beacon Course racetrack in Hoboken, New Jersey, when she was more than ten years old. She swept under the wire in 2 minutes 26.5 seconds. A campaigner for 16 seasons, Lady Suffolk was considered the “Queen of the Turf” until her death in 1855. Her last race was in 1853. During her racing career, she won 89 of 162 races and was second 56 times.

The book, The Gallant Gray Trotter, featured Lady Suffolk, and the song The Old Gray Mare is often, erroneously, attributed to her (see below).

It should be noted that two other mares trotting at the same time as Lady Suffolk had similar names: Suffolk Maid and Maid of Suffolk (source: “Backward Glances” by Thos. Floyd-Jones, 1914).

Lady Suffolk Trot: This prestigious trotting event, which is named after the famous mare, began in 1960. It is for 3 year old filly trotters, and a purse in excess of $80,000 is currently awarded. It has been split into two divisions since 1982, and has been contested at the Freehold Raceway since 1991. This is America’s oldest harness racing track, established in 1853 at Freehold Borough in central New Jersey.

Harness-racing (Trotting) and the Standardbred: Harness-racing is a form of horse racing in which the horses trot whilst being driven by a driver sitting in a small, light two-wheeled carriage called a ‘sulky’. Trotting is a high-stepping gait as opposed to the gallop seen in more conventional thoroughbred horse racing. In the 18th century trotting races with saddled horses (under saddle) were popular in America. Puritan opinion in New England came out against thoroughbred horse racing, and in 1802 it was made illegal in New York. In 1804 the ‘sulky’ first appeared and harness-racing arose. Racing with harnessed or saddled trotting horses was acceptable to the authorities and, as a consequence, this form of racing became very popular.

Harness racing reached the peak of its popularity in the late 19th century, with the establishment of a Grand Circuit of major fairs. With the popularity of harness racing came the development of the “Standardbred”, a horse bred specifically for racing under harness. The founding sire of all Standardbreds is an English thoroughbred named Messenger, who was brought to the United States in 1788. Messenger was bred to both pure thoroughbred and mixed breed mares, and his descendants were rebred until these matings produced a new breed with endurance, temperament and anatomy uniquely suited to racing under harness. The term “Standardbred” was introduced in 1879 to distinguish those trotting horses who met a certain “standard” for the mile distance. The time was 2½ minutes. This was based on Lady Suffolk’s record as the first trotter to finish a mile under saddle in under that time.

Although the sport became a popular local pastime, the development of organised racing on a large-scale did not arrive until after the Civil War. The American Stud Book was begun in 1868. For the next few decades, with the rapid rise of an industrial economy, gambling on horse racing grew explosively; by 1890, 314 tracks were operating across the country. In the early 1900s, however, racing in the United States was almost wiped out by anti-gambling sentiment that led almost all states to ban bookmaking. The sport sharply declined in popularity, and by 1908 the number of tracks had plummeted to just 25. By 1912 there was very little harness-racing. It was revived in 1926 and the sport was re-organised, particularly when pari-mutuel betting (known in some countries as the Tote) was allowed in 1933. Harness-racing took off again after World War II and is now, once again, one of America’s favourite pastimes.

The Old Gray Mare: Many modern sources state that this song is based upon the extraordinary performances of Lady Suffolk. However, the origins of this popular ditty have been well-researched. According to A History of Popular Music in America (1948 by Sigmund Spaeth), the song actually has its origins in an 1858 song by J. Warner titled, Down in Alabam'. This song was the original version of what is now known as The Old Gray Mare. Its words dealt with an “old hoss” that “came tearin' out de wilderness”, and the tune is very nearly identical. Although Lady Suffolk had only just died and was still at the height of her fame, it seems unlikely that the southern based lyrics would have anything to do with a famous grey mare who raced up in the land of the Yankees. The actual song The Old Gray Mare was composed by Frank Panella in 1915. He played saxophone in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The song refers to a horse and, by allusion, to people that are past their prime. It is generally accepted that Frank Panella borrowed a tune from what had become a Southern folk song. There is no indication that he was referring to Lady Suffolk, and the description in the song does not accord to what is known of the horse, other than she was a “gray mare”.

Lady Suffolk Lode: A gold-producing vein in Mill Creek, southwest Montana, named after the famous racehorse in the hope that it would be as successful. Gold was found in this part of Montana in September 1864, starting another gold rush. Mill Creek itself is one of the largest tributaries of the Yellowstone River, and enters this river about 15 miles south of Livingston, Montana. The first run on ore from the Lady Suffolk Lode was made in November 1865, and it was worked by a three-man company.

Ships named Lady Suffolk: Five American ships were named after the famous horse to indicate that they had the same qualities of speed and stamina (see Ships Named Suffolk page).

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Suffolk Park Race Track, West Philadelphia, USA

Suffolk Park was a popular harness-racing (trotting) track in the 19th century. It was located in Kingsessing Township some six miles to the west of the centre of Philadelphia, the other side of the River Schuylkill. In the late 18th century this area to the southwest of the city had remained much as it was before European settlement began. The lower part of the River Schuylkill, where it entered the Delaware River, consisted of a group of sandy, scrubland islands providing drier upland eminences amidst swampland and tidal creeks. This area was originally known as The Meadows, and was sparsely populated, occupied by scattered farmsteads on the higher land. By the 1840s much of the swampland had been drained for agricultural use, and the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad had built its track across this stretch of land in 1838. This made the area more accessible and young gentlemen began meeting on the higher land for sporting pursuits, of which one was the sport of trotting or harness-racing (see Lady Suffolk, above).

It is not known when a track was first laid out or why it received the name Suffolk Park, but there is record of a meeting at “Suffolk Park” in July 1850, so the name had become attached to it by then. It is possible that it was given this name in celebration of the record time achieved by the famous trotter Lady Suffolk in 1843. There was also a close association with Long Island in Suffolk County, New York, where there were several notable livery stables breeding and training trotters.

The race track was not located where the present Suffolk Park is found, which is east of Island Road. The former Suffolk Park Race Track was west of Island Road. Since a one mile circular track had to be laid out, the area of Suffolk Park was quite extensive. It overlooked Mingo Creek that connected Cobbs Creek and Darby Creek in the west to the River Schuylkill in the east. The Mingo Creek formed its western and southern boundary with the railroad as its southeastern boundary. To the east was the long thoroughfare of Island Road. Although the former street grid pattern has been largely superseded in this part of today’s Philadelphia, it stretched from 78th Street to 83rd Street, and from the railroad to Lyon Avenue. Of course, at that time, there were no streets around the ground; it was still in open countryside.

Suffolk Park became a large encampment area for the military during the Civil War. After the War trotting races became even more popular as the greater mobility of the times brought access to the general public, and a Suffolk Park railroad station was also built (later Bell Road station). Soon there was a Suffolk Park Hotel at the racecourse. However, Philadelphia was expanding, and by the1880s property speculators began purchasing farms to develop building lots. In 1854 Kingsessing Township had been incorporated into the City of Philadelphia as part of West Philadelphia. In 1886 the familiar grid pattern of American cities was laid out in plan, and in 1893 the race track was demolished and streets built over it. The thoroughfare that ran through the centre of the former racecourse was named Suffolk Avenue. After World War II the area was subject to urban redevelopment and was renamed Eastwick. Older property was demolished and the grid pattern was replaced. The Mario Lanza Boulevard now covers the area that was once Suffolk Park Race Track. Suffolk Avenue continues to exist, but now as a smaller street off 81st Street.

In 1921 the General Electric Switchgear Plant, covering some 1½ million square feet, was built east of Island Road in the Elmwood district. In 1984 this plant was demolished to make way for new housing and shopping developments. At the same time the present Suffolk Park was created as a recreational area adjacent to the Lindbergh Boulevard, between 74th Street and Island Road (now renamed Island Avenue). Thus, after an absence of 90 years, the name Suffolk Park returned to West Philadelphia.

Suffolk Stables, Shamong, New Jersey, USA

Suffolk Stables is off the Old Indian Mills Road in Shamong, a small township in the middle of the State of New Jersey. There is not a place called “Suffolk” anywhere near it. So how did the name come about?Simple really. The owner-operator of the stables comes from Mildenhall, Suffolk, England. Deborah Lyons-Greer was born in this small Suffolk town in 1971 as Deborah Lyons, went to Mildenhall Upper School, and studied at a college in Bury St Edmunds. However, her first love was horses and she became a horse trainer. Her life took her to New Jersey in the United States in 2001 and, in 2007, the opportunity came to open her own riding school and stables on a farm at Lumberton, New Jersey. This was later relocated to its present address in Shamong. Suffolk Stables has some 50 horses and teaches riding, both English and Western styles, at all levels from children to adults. The horses are available for events and trips out, and the farm itself holds regular shows. Deborah describes herself as “old school” and insists that teaching about horses is not just about riding, but includes everything from grooming, tacking, bathing, and even hand grazing. It is a requirement at Suffolk Stables that you groom and tack your own horse. It’s great to see that Deborah has taken the “old Suffolk” name with her.

Suffolk Pink - Colour

The name Suffolk Pink is a term given to many cottages & farmhouses throughout the rural areas of Suffolk, England. Nowadays this is obviously due to the colour of paint used, but a popular misconception still persists that in bygone times the colour was the result of pigs or ox blood being added to the whitewash or distemper. Whilst blood was indeed added, & undoubtedly enhanced the colour produced, this was used more as a binding agent. The primary source of the colour itself came from the adding of red ochre (derived from iron), or alternately from sloe berries.

Nowadays, ICI Paints produce a colour in their Dulux range called ‘Suffolk Pink’. This includes both interior & exterior paints for a variety of surfaces, such as walls & ceilings, wood, metal, concrete, plastic & masonry.

The reputation of how this colour was created has resonated with some rock bands whose genre is connected with horror and Satanism; see White Wash And Pig’s Blood (Suffolk Pink) by Jack The Stripper and Suffolk Pink by The Proprietor, in the More Songs & Music with “Suffolk” in the Title section, above.

Suffolk Shroff

We have only come across the “Suffolk Shroff” in The Little Book of Suffolk (2007), Carol Twinch’s excellent book relating many interesting facts regarding Suffolk, England, and we acknowledge her contribution to our knowledge of all things Suffolk.

It is said that “the ‘shroff hut’ is a cart or multi-purpose shed of unique construction, once a building particular to Suffolk.” It had a flat roof supported by undressed trunks, on top of which brushwood was piled and overlain by thatch.

Our researches in the Oxford English Dictionary and various dialectical dictionaries indicate that “shroff” or “shroffe” is a variant of the word “shruff”, recorded in 1399 for light rubbish wood used for fuel. Another meaning, first recorded in 1591, is “a store for shruffe, dust and small cole (coal)”. In other words, a wood-shed or coal-shed. The word is now obsolete but was in general use throughout Yorkshire, Lancashire and East Anglia. The word originates from the Old Swedish "skorff" = something cut into shreds, bits and pieces. This is probably why the word “shroff” was only found in the former Danelaw part of England.

All sources recognise that in Suffolk and Norfolk the collection of “shruff” (shroff), light rubbish wood left over from their work, was a “perquisite” (perk) of the hedgers. It may be that in Suffolk it was built up as a sort of temporary shelter for the hedgers when at work.

Suffolk Fair Maids

“Suffolk Fair Maids” is a traditional expression used to describe the beauty of the women of Suffolk, England. The expression dates back from at least the Middle Ages.

Describing Margaret, the Fair Maid of Fressingfield, the Elizabethan play The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, written by Robert Greene (1558 -90), contains the lines:

“A bonnier wench all Suffolk cannot yield.All Suffolk! Nay, all England holds none such”

Silly Suffolk

Sometimes used as a derogatory term to describe the people of Suffolk, England, the phrase “Silly Suffolk” is actually a corruption of the Old English (Anglo Saxon) word “selig” meaning holy or blessed. Selig Suffolk referred to the many churches in the county; the Domesday Book of 1086 recording 418 churches in Suffolk, whereas Norfolk had a mere 274.

Suffolk Street Fellowship (or Suffolk Street Christadelphians) 1885-1957

The Suffolk Street Fellowship was the name of a Christian sect that existed from 1885 to 1957. The Christadelphians are a religious denomination formed in America in 1847 by John Thomas, an Englishman from London. They claim to represent the simple apostolic faith at the time of Christ and, in common with many other sects, hold that they alone interpret the Scriptures truly. After the death of John Thomas in 1871, Robert Roberts in Birmingham, England, is the man generally considered to have continued the work of organising and establishing the Christadelphian movement.

He was the editor of “The Christadelphian”, and from 1871 his headquarters were based at the Temperance Hall, Birmingham. In 1877 Robert Roberts was directly involved in the compilation of the Birmingham Statement of Faith that set out the guiding principles of the movement.

Christadelphians believe that the Bible was inspired by God and, therefore, believe that, in its original form, it was error free. All the words are the literal words of God. They do not believe that scripture was moderated by time or circumstance. However, this is usually qualified with the belief that this is true only for the Bible in the original languages of Hebrew, Greek and Chaldee. Any other view of this “inspiration” would be considered by Christadelphians to be “partial inspiration”, and questions about this issue led to an historical division in 1885.

Robert Ashcroft, a leading member, wrote an article which challenged the commonly held views about inspiration. He set forth the claim that parts of the Bible are not inspired. This led to Robert Roberts withdrawing fellowship from Ashcroft, and Roberts pressed for the Statement of Faith to be clarified along the lines that he alone advocated. By this action, Roberts established a precedent for dealing with doctrinal dissidence that was not to the liking of many of the brethren. The primary issue was Roberts’ dictatorial handling of the matter and whether any authority as spokesman for the whole brotherhood should rest on the office of editor of “The Christadelphian”. Many brethren objected to his attempts to enforce his own views on the whole brotherhood by having them enshrined in a rigid Statement of Faith which had to be accepted as a condition of fellowship. Even though Ashcroft left the movement, his article led to a division in the main body. A new group was formed in 1885 that met in Suffolk Street, Birmingham. Other groups throughout the world which supported them became known as the “Suffolk Street Fellowship”, so they could be distinguished from the group they had separated from. That group became known as the “Temperance Hall Fellowship”.

Over the years there were numerous other divisions within the Christadelphian movement. However, in the 1950s there were moves towards re-union. The Suffolk Street Fellowship had already incorporated many of the Unamended Fellowship outside North America in 1920. In 1957 the Suffolk Street Fellowship rejoined the Temperance Hall Fellowship. This reunited group, which now included the large majority of Christadelphians, became known as the Central Fellowship named after the Birmingham Central ecclesia (congregation). Those in the Suffolk Street Fellowship who maintained that the reasons for separation from the original body remained, opposed the re-union and they formed the Old Paths Fellowship. Thus the name of the Suffolk Street sect passed into history.

The Suffolk Collection - Paintings

The Suffolk Collection of 41 paintings, predominantly family portraits, was passed down through the Suffolk and Berkshire families from the 1580s. It was given to the nation in 1974 by the Hon. Mrs Greville Howard, following the wishes of her mother-in-law, the 11th Countess of Suffolk, who died in 1968. They were originally shown in the Ranger’s House, Greenwich, (built in 1699) which was reopened as a gallery for the Suffolk Collection. In 1986 English Heritage was given responsibility for the collection and they moved it to Kenwood House. Kenwood House is a former stately home in Hampstead, London, on the northern boundary of Hampstead Heath. The original house dates from the early 17th century, and it is set in beautiful landscaped parkland. It was renovated 1764-1779 by Robert Adam in the neo-classical style and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in London. It was donated to the nation by Lord Iveagh when he died in 1927. The Suffolk Collection dates from the late 16th century to the late 19th century, but is significant for the early, full-length English portraits by William Larkin. William Larkin was an English painter active from 1609 until his death in 1619, known for his portraits of members of the court of James I of England which capture in detail the opulent layering of textiles, embroidery, lace, and jewellery characteristic of fashion in the Jacobean era. The Collection also contains many old masters, particularly by Van Dyck and Lely.

The Suffolk Knot

This is a special way of tying a knot (see diagram, right). It became known as the Suffolk Knot because it was used in heraldry as a badge for John de la Pole, the 2nd Duke of Suffolk (died 1491).

Suffolk Stiles

This is a slang expression for “ditches”. It was recorded in 1662 as part of a proverb “Essex miles, Suffolk stiles and Norfolk wiles.” The proverbial meaning was with reference to the practices of the people in the eastern counties of England. “Essex miles” were said to be the longest in England because the people of that county always under-estimated distances, so that when they said the next village was only “a mile away”, it would most likely be several miles. Norfolk farmers were typical wily “barrack-room lawyers” full of themselves with knowledge of the law, and it was said that they would start an action if a neighbour’s horse looked over their hedge. “Suffolk stiles” were really “ditches” because the farmers of Suffolk would enclose any piece of open land that they came across by ditches so as to make for more efficient farming and, in fact, Suffolk was one of the earliest counties to be enclosed by the enabling Enclosure Acts of Parliament.

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"The Suffolk Abacus"

In his excellent & amusing book Sloightly On The Sosh (An Eccentric Look At Suffolk), Charlie Haylock devotes a chapter to the Suffolk Abacus; an ingenious way of learning the 6 to 9 times tables using only your fingers. He reports that this system of multiplication has been known as the Suffolk Abacus since at least the nineteenth century, & was apparently devised for children in Suffolk, England who were forced to miss some of their schooling due to the necessity of the whole family working in the fields at certain periods of the year, especially at harvest time. The thinking seems to have been that, once you knew your 2 to 5 times tables, with the Suffolk Abacus you could easily calculate any multiple of 6, 7, 8 or 9 with ease, & with no need for anything except your fingers.

The system works as follows:- Each finger is given a number: the little fingers being 6, the ring finger 7, the middle finger 8,with the index finger being designated 9 (in theory, you could include the thumbs as 10, but this seems a bit unnecessary). This numbering is the same for both hands. Holding yours hands out in front, palms facing towards you, touch the finger representing one of the numbers on the right hand against the other number you wish to multiply on the left hand. For example, if you want to calculate 7 x 8, then place the ring finger on the right hand against the middle finger of the left. Now add together the number of fingers touching & beneath the touching pair. In this instance this gives 5 (3 beneath & 2 touching). Multiplying this by 10 gives us 50. Now take the fingers above the touching pair on each hand, including the thumbs, & multiply them. Therefore, in our example there are 3 fingers on the right hand & two on the left above the touching pair. 3 x 2 equals 6. This is then added to the 50 to give the correct answer: 7 x 8 = 56.

Whether this is truly a Suffolk initiative seems unlikely, since this system of multiplication has been around since the Middle Ages. It was first written down in 1492 as “an ancient rule” by the Italian painter and mathematician, Piero della Francesca, and became more widely known in the book “Summa Arithmetica” written by his associate Luca Pacioli, an Italian Franciscan friar, in 1494. It seems to have been widely used in the market places by the illiterate, but obviously numerate, traders where it was essential to calculate numbers rapidly. In 1543 it is recorded as “French peasant multiplication”.

The Suffolk Black Dragon – Legend from Suffolk, England

The legend of the Suffolk Black Dragon is recorded by two separate sources, dating from the fourteenth & fifteenth centuries, although the origin of the tales may well be much older than this. The legends, both recorded as facts, tell of the Suffolk Black’s skirmishes with the local people, & with her rival from the neighbouring county; the Essex Red.

Many areas of Britain have their own dragon myths, & the stories of the Suffolk Black Dragon take place in the southern part of the county along the River Stour & the border with Essex. The earlier story is recounted by the monk John de Trokelowe, a Benedictine monk of St Albans, whose dates of birth & death are uncertain, but who is known to have been living at the priory of Tynemouth, Northumberland in 1294 & was still writing as late as 1330. His chronicles later appeared in the collection known as the Historia Anglicana.

The Suffolk Black Dragon is female, & was said to have her lair on Kedington Hill near Little Cornard. At that time, due to human encroachment, wild places where dragons could remain hidden were becoming fewer, with the result that there was less wild game to be found. The Suffolk Black therefore found herself drawn towards human settlements such as Sudbury.

Having been seen swimming along the Stour, a party of men with bows & arrows are said to have tried to drive off the Suffolk Black, whose hunger had forced her to go after the humans’ livestock. The dragon fought back, breathing fire & killing several sheep & at least one human in the process, but eventually was forced to fly off. She found, however, that the humans harried her everywhere she went, & eventually she had no alternative but to cross the Stour into the territory of her rival the Essex Red Dragon. There she rested for a while, but she knew that her incursion into Essex would incur the wrath of the rival dragon if she was discovered on his side of the river.

The later tale, which follows on from the first, can be found in a book that is now in the library at Canterbury Cathedral. The event is even given a specific date for its occurrence; 26th September 1449.

The Essex Red, whilst patrolling the border of his county (the Essex Red is male), caught the scent of the Suffolk Black Dragon & realised that she had trespassed into his territory. He rose into the air & roared a challenge to his rival across the river. The Suffolk Black flew up to meet him &, belching fire, the two commenced battle in the sky. Unlike in the first tale where the locals were hostile to such beasts, on this occasion the people on both sides of the river came out to support & cheer on ‘their’ dragon. The battle raged for some time, & at one stage the Suffolk Black seemed to be on the point of conceding defeat. However, as the Essex Red began to sense victory, the Suffolk Black attacked again & the two rose higher & higher into the sky, wheeling around each other until they disappeared into the clouds. From that day onwards no dragon has ever been reported in Suffolk.

A modern day account of the Suffolk Black & Essex Red Dragons can be found in the 2013 book Suffolk Folk Tales by Kirsty Hartsiotis.

Dragon legends can be found from all over the world, with many theories put forward to explain them. One line of thought suggests that the stories refer to encounters with real creatures, possibly relict populations of dinosaurs, which survived into historical times. Another theory is that the so called dragons in the tales actually allude to the earth energies that are alleged to criss-cross the landscape in ley-lines or ‘dragon paths’. Ancient stories of dragon slaying were later incorporated into religious tales of good versus evil. The second part of the Suffolk Black legend, however, suggests some aerial phenomena, such as a comet, meteors, solar flares, ball lightning, or even what we would now label UFO activity.

Suffolk Bitters Pig Bottles

Most bottles are to a large degree in different shapes and styles, and soda, carbonated soft drinks and beer are prime examples of products very closely identified with a distinct bottle shape that is rarely used for other products. During the 19th century distinctive shapes were also used to contain medicinal drinks, particularly in what are known as figural bottles, i.e. bottles made after the form of some type of object, animal or person. These bottles were often not discarded, but instead kept as a decorative item for a window or china cabinet.

The creative beginnings of a figural bottle are as old as ceramic (made from clay) and glass containers themselves. Ancient glass and pottery makers frequently made vessels in the shapes of different animals and people. Besides their shapes, another feature of figurals is their various colours.

The majority of figural bottles in the United States were manufactured during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and have today become collectors’ items. Within this collecting genre “figural bitters” have always attracted the most attention because they came in colourful glass bottles shaped like log cabins, Native American women, fish and other forms. For collectors, a bitters bottle must have the word “bitters” somewhere in the lettering to distinguish it from a regular medicine bottle. Two brands of bitters were marketed in bottles shaped as pigs: Berkshire Bitters and Suffolk Bitters (see article above for further explanation).

Pigs were a sign of prosperity during the late 19th century. They were popular with the public so these two manufacturers capitalised on figurals shaped as a pig as a marketing tool. Apart from allusions to the ‘hoggish propensity’ of the user, there is the little matter of the spout. The business end of the bottle is the back en d of the pig. Using the cork to seal the contents at the rear allowed crude jokes or slogans pointing to that part of the anatomy to be used in order to enhance the appeal of the product.

From 1865 to 1874, Philbrook & Tucker of Boston sold their Suffolk Bitters in a bottle blown in a two-part mold; body in the form of a reclining pig, with an embossed inscription: “SUFFOLK BITTERS” on obverse, “PHILBROOK & TUCKER BOSTON” on reverse, and a cylindrical neck extending horizontally from the tail. The figural pig bottle was issued only in amber tones, although the glass can have colour variations which adds to its value as a collector’s piece, yellows being scarce and a definite olive tone being considered very rare.

19th century two toned Suffolk Bitters (courtesy of the Ferdinand Meyer Collection)

In the early 1970s, Taiwan made reproductions of the 19th century pig figural in an assortment of colours, blue being the most common (see photograph, right). It is not known how many of these figural pigs were made or how long they were produced. However, these reproductions have become much sought after collectors’ items in their own right. These measure 9″ long and almost 4″ high, and can be quite rare, dependent on variations in colour.

Suffolk Haarlem Oil

Containers, often still intact with the oil, are collectors’ pieces, and can be seen advertised under the above name on the Internet. The cylindrical clear glass bottle is tiny, only 3½ inches tall, containing 2 drams of the liquid.

It needs to be said at the outset that, although the bottle, wrapper and liquid inside are undoubtedly genuine from the time indicated, i.e. late 19th century, everything about its name and contents is false. This was the period, particularly in the USA, when quack medicine remedies abounded. The name is completely illusionary; it has no relationship to any Suffolk, nor to “Haarlem Oil”. This was a time when copyright laws had not become well embedded, and international agreements on the exclusive rights for the use and distribution of an original product were not in place.

The name seems to have been first employed by W.C.Hughes & Co, a manufacturing chemist in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. This was before 1891 since W.C.Hughes died that year in Missouri. However, he had obviously sold his product name to C&D Manufacturing Co., Pasadena, Maryland, before he left Baltimore (the photo, right, shows a container from that company). The product name was later taken up by the Baltimore Drug Company.

The wrapper states: “Suffolk Haarlem Oil. This Old Family Remedy has been manufactured to an old formula for a long time.” Presumably, the name “Suffolk” was adopted in an attempt to add authenticity to their product, whether alluding to Suffolk in Massachusetts, where the Pilgrim Fathers landed in America, or to that county in England to indicate its ‘ancient origin’ hardly matters. The liquid is composed of balsam, sulphur, linseed oil, turpentine and mineral oil. Needless to say neither the product nor W.C.Hughes has a connection with any Suffolk, and it is not genuine Haarlem Oil.

Haarlem Oil is a natural supplement that can be taken for a range of ailments. It is a mixture of sulphur, herbs and various natural oils. It was invented in 1696 by Claes Tilly, assisted by Hermann Boergrave, professor of medicine at the University of Leyden. It was marketed first as a cure for kidney and bladder disorders, then for rheumatism and uric acid conditions for the benefit of his patrons in and about Haarlem (Netherlands), as well as being used at an early date as a horse remedy for their joints. Genuine Haarlem Oil is produced in a factory equipped with sophisticated and expensive equipment. The ingredients follow a process that takes several days, and this permitted the Tilly Family to preserve the secret of the production for over 200 years. The reputation of Haarlem Oil spread throughout Europe and to other parts of the world. At first, other families in Haarlem tried to replicate this remedy, thus they could legitimately describe it as “Haarlem Oil” since it was made in that city, but it was never the genuine article since the formula was kept a secret by the Tilly family. Nevertheless, the numerous imitations hindered the quality of the genuine product and its reputation, particularly when chemists as far afield as America claimed their product to be “Haarlem Oil”.

Representations by the Dutch government and the level of deception in many products by chemical manufacturers in the USA led to the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1908. This prohibited the use of a geographical name in connection with a food or drug product not made in that place. The regulations are specific and no foreign name which is recognised as distinctive of a foreign product may be used on an article of domestic origin. This stopped the manufacture of Haarlem Oil in the USA, and also the use of the name Suffolk when there was no association with that place. The production of “Suffolk Haarlem Oil” thus ended in 1908.

Suffolk Soil

The first soil survey of the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, Canada, took place in 1959 on Vancouver Island. This identified a soil profile of limited extent that was named Alberni (after the Alberni Valley on that island). Later, in 1980 and 1981, a detailed soil inventory was made of Salt Spring Island, the largest island between Vancouver Island and the mainland. This identified the same soil profile as the dominant feature occupying an area of 200 ha (494 acres) around Suffolk Road to the southeast of St Mary Lake on that island. Following the survey, “Suffolk Soil” became the recognised name for this soil type in British Columbia.

The soil parent materials found today were once transported and deposited by glaciers and the sea during the last glacial period. All the Gulf Islands were glaciated several times during the Pleistocene. The last major ice sheet covered the islands some time less than 25 000 years ago and retreated about 12 000 years ago. As glaciers overrode the islands, material plucked from the sedimentary bedrock was mixed with the granitic and volcanic detritus carried from Vancouver Island. As the ice melted, the load of material became too great for the glacier to carry and was deposited as glacial till. At the time the land was depressed relative to the sea because of the weight of the glacier, and this allowed marine waters to enter these depressed areas as the ice retreated. The islands have risen relative to the sea since the retreat of the glaciers, and where these marine deposits were left in protected sites, such as valleys between the ridges of sedimentary rock, the parent materials of the Suffolk Soil were developed.

The scientific classification for Suffolk Soil is a Gleyed Dystric Brunisol with significant occurrences of Gleyed Humic Podzol. In layman’s language this indicates that Suffolk Soils are imperfectly drained soils that have a firm, finely-textured shallow loam to silty clay marine deposits, usually stone-free, to a depth of 30-80 cm overlying a coarse-textured, gravelly sandy, unweathered compact moraine till within 100 cm from the surface, and close to the bedrock. It has a generally dark yellowish-brown surface, and prominent mottles (spotting in different shades) at depths of 50 to 100 cm.

Suffolk soils usually have a “perched water-table” during winter months. This terminology means that water lies on isolated impermeable layers above the normal water-table, thus giving a false impression where water can usually be found. It is saturated to about 60 cm from the surface during winter and early spring, but the water drains quickly in spring and drought conditions may even prevail during extended dry periods in the summer.

Suffolk Soils occur between sea level and 100 metres (330 ft) on gently undulating terrain. Other than around Suffolk Road on Salt Spring Island, they are found predominantly in the Comox Valley on the east coast of Vancouver Island, and confined to small areas on the Gabriola, Galiano, Thetis, and Penelakut (formerly Kuper) islands. The natural vegetation on the Suffolk Soils is forest, mainly of Douglas fir, western red cedar, red alder and maple. However, most of the land has been cleared of its original vegetation for agricultural use, such as pasture and hay production. The Suffolk Soils can be improved with drainage, irrigation and fertiliser to produce a wide range of agricultural crops.

February 2022 - Unfortunately, due to the current spate of spammers, scammers and time wasters posting random, unrelated content to this page, I have regretfully decided to temporarily suspend the posting of messages. The situation will be reviewed on a regular basis, and hopefully normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. If you wish to contribute to this site, please email me with your comments to info@planetsuffolk.com

Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

The Suffolk Regiment