Place:Eye, Suffolk, England

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

Eye is a market town and and civil parish in the north of the English county of Suffolk, about 4 miles (6 km) south of Diss, 17.5 miles (28 km) north of Ipswich and 23 miles (37 km) southwest of Norwich. The population in the 2011 UK Census of 2,154, was a drop compared to the estimate of 2,361 in 2019. The town lies close to the River Waveney (the border with Norfolk), and on the River Dove.

The Grade 1 listed Church of St. Peter and St. Paul from the 14th century is seen as one of the finest in the county. A 13th-century Early English doorway was retained from an earlier building. The 15th and 16th centuries brought new work and renovation. This included installing an altar tomb to William Honnyng (1520-1569) in the Lady Chapel and one to Nicholas Cutler to the northwest of the nave. The church was restored again in 1868. A notable added feature is a remarkable late 15th-century rood screen, with a loft and rood designed by Ninian Comper in 1925. The tower of the church is 107 feet (33 metres) high to the tip of the pinnacles.

History

Eye before the Norman Conquest of 1066 was one of numerous holdings of Edric of Laxfield, a wealthy, influential Saxon, who was the third largest landholder in Suffolk. After the Norman Conquest, the town's regional importance was confirmed when the Honour of Eye was granted to William Malet, a Norman lord.

In 1066–1071, Malet built a castle as his military and administrative headquarters and started a market that initiated the urbanisation of Eye. In 1086–1087, William's son Robert Malet, tenant-in-chief of the Honour of Eye in the hundred of Hartismere, founded Eye Priory.

Eye began to lose its strategic importance after 1173 when the castle was attacked by Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk during a rebellion against King Henry II, and again later during the Second Barons' War of 1265, after which it never regained its former status. Its prison continued in use up until the early 17th century, despite a programme of demolishing most of the castle buildings in the 14th century. A windmill was built in 1561–1562 and stood on the motte until a circular mock keep was built there in 1844.

Eye was once the smallest borough in the country, its claim based on the 1205 Charter of King John. The charter was renewed in 1408, then by Elizabeth I in 1558 and 1574, by James I in 1604, and by William III in 1697. However, in 1885 the town clerk of Hythe in Kent proved that the original charter belonged only to Hythe, the error having arisen from the similarity of the early English names. The error was confirmed by archivists in the 1950s, but borough status was not discontinued until the 1974 government reorganisation, when Eye became a civil parish, while retaining a Town Council, a Mayor and its insignia. From 1571 to 1832 Eye returned two Members of Parliament (MPs), then after the Reform Act 1832, a single MP until 1983, when the Eye Constituency became the Suffolk Central constituency.

The Lordship of the Manor of Eye (also named Sokemere) and Constableship of the Castle is held by the Palmer family of Haughley in Suffolk. The current Lord is Kieron Palmer of Haughley, succeeding his father Kenneth Palmer. The Manor was held by the Malet family in Norman times, Henry Earl of Brabant, the De Ufford, De la Pole, Cornwallis and Kerrison families as well as King Stephen, Edward I, Mary I and Thomas Beckett in previous years. Known as the Honour of Eye, it consisted of 129 manors and had the right to a court of pie poudre at its Whit Monday market fairs and those of Thrandeston and Finningham.

The earliest mention of industry in Eye records that in 1673 "the women's employ in this town is making of bone lace" and in 1830, "the humbler class of industrious females employ themselves in lace making." It would appear that Eye was at the centre of a localised lace-making industry for many years.

In 1846 Eye Borough Council failed in its attempt to route the new London-Norwich railway line through Eye. The line, completed in 1849, went instead through Diss, which was ensured growth in prosperity and population, while the importance of Eye waned. Eye railway station, at the end of a branch line from Mellis, closed to passengers in 1931 and to freight in 1964.[13]

Eye Airfield, to the northeast of the town, began as RAF Eye, occupied by the 490th Bomb Group of the USAAF's VIII Bomber Command during the Second World Wa.

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.