Place:Ballingdon, Suffolk, England

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

"BALLINGDON-CUM-BRUNDON, a parish in the [registration} district of Sudbury, and county of Essex; on the northern verge of the county, ½ a mile SW of Sudbury [railway] station [in Suffolk]. Post Town: Sudbury. Acres: 366. Real property: £4,392. Population: 861. Houses: 190. There are two manors, Ballingdon-above-Bridge and Ballingdon-below-Bridge.

"The whole tract was long a parish under the name of Brundon, and seems to have been part of the manor of Brundon, which in the earliest times belonged to the family of Limesi; but now is sometimes regarded as a portion of the parish of Sudbury. The living is a vicarage, annexed to the vicarage of Sudbury, in the diocese of Ely. There is no church."

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Ballingdon is a suburb of the town of Sudbury in Suffolk, England. Once a separate village in the County of Essex, today it is part of Sudbury civil parish. It is the only part of Sudbury to the west of the River Stour.

The village developed on the important ancient highway from Braintree and Halstead in Essex to Sudbury and Bury St. Edmunds. It grew adjacent to a bridge (today known as Ballingdon Bridge) over the River Stour. It dates back to at least the 13th century. It remains the only crossing of the river for several miles in each direction. Ballingdon cum Brundon, then in Essex) was added to the borough of Sudbury (and the county of Suffolk) in 1888 as part of the Local Government Act which covered the whole of England.

Ballingdon came to be home to many businesses, evidence of which can be seen in the architecture of the buildings, with large shop windows and other tell-tale signs. This was because before Ballingdon became part of Suffolk it was cheaper to open a business on the Essex side of the river, as no levy had to be paid to Sudbury town council. By 2011 only 8 businesses remained open outside the industrial units, just 3 of them retail outlets. Ballingdon was home to two brickworks, long since vanished, but location maps of them can be found online.

NOTE: There is a discrepancy between different pages of Wikipedia with regard to when Ballingdon was transferred from Essex to Suffolk. In the article quoted above it is stated that the change occurred in 1888. However, Ballingdon was listed as a parish in Belchamp Rural District in Essex from 1894 to 1896. This may have been a case of the national act not being adopted at the local level at the same time.

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.