Place:Combs, Suffolk, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Combs is a village and civil parish in the English county of Suffolk. It is located directly to the south of Stowmarket, with a half-mile (800m) of glacial valley known locally as 'Slough' making a boundary between them. At the 2011 UK census it had a population of 852.

There are several interesting historic buildings including the old village school, the tannery, and the former model farm that has now been developed as dwellings. Combs Post Office is now a private dwelling but the original postbox is still there the building is Grade 2 listed.

According to White's History, Gazetteer and Directory of Suffolk published in 1885 the village had 1,174 inhabitants at the 1881 census, although this does include Combs Ford, which nowadays is regarded as being a suburb of Stowmarket. White's also notes that at that time the Combs Tannery was owned by Messrs. Webb and Sons and carried on the tanning of leather and manufacture of glove and gaiter leather, leather machine bands and leather hose. In 1885 the tannery employed 150 persons. It also states that an artesian well had been sunk on the site at a depth of 895 feet (273 m) and a diameter of ten inches (254 mm) at the surface. Many interesting geological specimens were extracted and deposited in Ipswich Museum.

Combs was originally a parish in the Stow Hundred. When rural districts were adopted as a form of local administration in 1894, it was placed in East Stow Rural District. In 1934 East Stow Rural District was abolished. Combs was divided into two parts with its more built-up section (Combs Ford) going to Stowmarket which was an urban district and the section that remained rural to Gipping Rural District. In 1974 Combs parish became part of the Mid Suffolk District.

Research Tips

• A map of Suffolk from 1900 provided online by A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography) can be enlarged to view individual parishes. Careful inspection will usually lead to the discovery of smaller hamlets founded before 1900. The rural districts (marked with their names printed in blue) are those in existence in 1900, not those introduced in 1934. The more ancient hundreds are marked in red. Most (but not all) parish names are underlined in red.

Suffolk Information

• Suffolk Family History Society A community of people who are interested in the local and family history pertaining to Suffolk.
• Suffolk Archives (Record Office) ( e-mail archives@suffolk.gov.uk) - The Suffolk Archive has branches in Ipswich (at The Hold, 131 Fore Street, Ipswich, IP4 1LR), Bury St. Edmunds (at 77 Raingate Street, Bury St Edmunds, IP33 2AR) and Lowestoft (at Lowestoft Library, Clapham Road South, Lowestoft, NR32 1DR). Includes: a good-looking website, research services and publications.
• Suffolk Churches This is an excellent guide to most of the Suffolk Churches with lots of pictures and descriptions of the architecture and history. It includes many chapels. If you have trouble visiting Suffolk to see where your ancestor were baptised, married and buried, or even those who want to just add to their knowledge, this is the site for you.

For those whose families may have wandered over the county borders:

• Cambridgeshire & Huntingdon Family History Society - One of the three counties adjoining Suffolk. The Isle of Ely is included in their area.
• Essex Family History Society - Another of the three counties adjoining Suffolk, stretching south to the outskirts of London.
• Norfolk Family History Society - The third of the counties adjoining Suffolk. There was a realignment of the border in 1974.
• Romany & Traveller Family History Society - British family history society for people with Romany Gypsy, Traveller and Fairground roots.

British Government Information

• The National Archives or "TNA" - More than 850,000 Probate Wills from 1610-1858 (PCC wills dating back to 1670 have been completed). Free access to indexes but copy of a will costs £10.00. (Ancestry has an index to wills published after 1858.) Access also available to the Domesday Book, World War One Diaries and various other information. Their catalogue called Discovery holds more than 32 million descriptions of records held by The National Archives and more than 2,500 archives across the country including County Record Offices. Over 9 million records are available for download.
• The British Library - This vast collection contains millions of bibliographic records, British newspapers, many now digitised and searchable on-line and much more.
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission - The database lists the 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died during the two world wars and the 23,000 cemeteries, memorials and other locations world-wide where they are commemorated. The register can also be searched for details of the 67,000 Commonwealth civilians who died as a result of enemy action in the Second World War.
• General Register Office - provides official copies of birth marriage & death certificates for England & Wales.
• FreeBMD - provides Civil Registration index information for England and Wales. The transcribing of the records, by volunteers, is ongoing and contains well over 279 million records at August 2020. Records are complete from 1837 to 1983. Later records are not complete.
• FreeCEN - provides a "free-to-view" online searchable database of the UK census returns from 1841 to 1891. The transcribing of the records, by volunteers, is ongoing and contains well over 39 million records at August 2020. At that time Suffolk records appeared to be only for the 1891 census and a few for the 1871 census.
• FreeREG - provides baptism, marriage, and burial records, which have been transcribed, by volunteers, from parish and non-conformist church registers in the UK. There are over 49 million entries with just under 300,000 records for Suffolk at August 2020.
• Ministry of Defence (url not found)- provides information for obtaining details about service records post 1920
• Royal Air Force Museum (url not found) - for information on the archive and library research material available.