Place:Suffolk, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Suffolk is a large historic and modern non-metropolitan county in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich, at 52°03′22″N, 1°08′59″E and other important towns include Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds. Felixstowe is one of the largest container ports in Europe.

The county is low-lying with few hills, and is largely wetland habitat and arable land with the wetlands of The Broads in the North, and the Suffolk Coast and Heaths is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Suffolk was part of the kingdom of East Anglia which was settled by the Angles in the 5th century.

Suffolk was divided into separate Quarter Sessions divisions. These were originally four in number, reduced to two in 1860: the eastern division being administered from Ipswich and the western from Bury St Edmunds. The two divisions were made separate administrative counties as East Suffolk and West Suffolk under the Local Government Act 1888, with Ipswich becoming a county borough.

Under the Local Government Act 1972, East Suffolk, West Suffolk and Ipswich were merged to form a unified county of Suffolk on April 1, 1974. This was divided into several local government districts: Babergh, Forest Heath, Ipswich, Mid Suffolk, St. Edmundsbury, Suffolk Coastal, Waveney. This also saw a further part of land near Great Yarmouth become part of Norfolk. As introduced into Parliament, the Local Government Bill would have included Newmarket and Haverhill into Cambridgeshire, with it being compensated by the inclusion of Colchester from Essex: these proposals were ultimately decided against.

West Suffolk is, like nearby East Cambridgeshire, renowned for archaeological findings from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Bronze Age artefacts have been found in the area between Mildenhall and West Row, in Eriswell and in Lakenheath. Many bronze objects, such as swords, spear-heads, arrows, axes, palstaves, knives, daggers, rapiers, armour, decorative equipment (in particular for horses) and fragments of sheet bronze, are entrusted to the Moyse's Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds. Other finds include traces of cremations and barrows.

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