Site of electricity works
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Pre
1900 | Please click here if you want to look back to 1899 and earlier in our local history of St Edmundsbury. | | 1900 | In 1900, Suffolk was still a deeply rural county. Most people lived in the 500 villages and towns of under 5000 people. Haverhill, like Thetford, had around 4,000 people. Only 5 towns exceeded 5000. Rural life was in decline as foreign food imports undermined agricultural prices and thus wages. |
At Bury the locals were proud to say that the streets and public buildings would soon be lit by electricity as the works, which belonged to the corporation, were completed in 1900. They were located on the Playfields, off Prospect Row.
The Railway Mission was built in Bury at Fornham Road, just past the railway bridge. In Haverhill, the Recreation Ground was opened, a gift from W. B. Gurteen.
Thurlow Champness' shop received the large decorative clock which still hangs over the shop in Abbeygate Street in Bury today.
Some things did change, however. Hengrave Hall had passed out of the old aristocratic Gage family and into the hands of a rich ironmaster. In 1900 Sir John Wood converted the church on the estate from Catholic to Protestant worship. He also restored the greatly decayed house, and built a new annexe. Although some older features of the Tudor building were lost, without his work it may well have decayed away completely.
The First Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment was in England when the South Africa War broke out in October 1899, and was mobilised and sent to the Cape. Their first battle was to assault Red Hill near Colesburg in January 1900 with heavy losses. The Boers gave the area the name of Suffolk Hill in recognition of their courage. Back in Bury, January saw a rush to raise a Volunteer Company to go to the Cape. Thirty men from the 2nd Volunteer Battalion joined others from East Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Cambridge University to train at Bury. They left for South Africa on February 11th. At 5.30 am, in a blinding snowstorm, they were cheered off at Bury train station by hundreds of local people. On May 12th they joined the 1st Battalion The Suffolk Regiment, at the Vet River.
Meanwhile on 23rd March, the 2nd Volunteer Company left Bury for Capetown, where they arrived on April 14th. They joined the Suffolk Regiment at Middleburg. | | 1901 | Queen Victoria died in January, the last monarch of the House of Hanover. The new king, Edward VII, was a Saxe-Coburg.
In February the electric street lighting in Bury had its ceremonial switching on. There was at first only eight lighting columns. The census for 1901 tells us that Bury had a population of 16,255 at this time. Clare was 1,582, Haverhill was 4,862 and Sudbury was 7,109. Stanton was 778, Ixworth was 856, and Horringer 525. Lavenham had 2,018 and Long Melford had 3,080 people.
On May 3rd in the evening, the 1st Volunteer company returned home from the Boer War to a heroes welcome. Two officers and 98 men marched from the train station to Angel Hill, accompanied by large crowds, for a welcome home by the Mayor. They then returned to barracks and were demobbed the next day.
The 2nd Volunteer Company arrived back to another warm welcome in early June.
The story of St Edmund continued to intrigue people, and some relics were taken from St Sernin in Toulouse, to Arundel, as it was said that they were the remains of St Edmund. It was intended to lay these relics in the Westminster Cathedral, which was in the final stages of construction. However, respected men such as M R James, Dr Charles Bigg and Sir Ernest Clarke, all refuted the idea that these could be the bones of St Edmund. Cardinal Vaughan at Westminster accepted these assertions and the bones were never removed from Arundel.
The Icklingham Papers were published in 1901 by Henry Prigg's daughter, Mrs Beatrice Andrews, who had accompanied him on some of his antiquarian excursions. The book was introduced by Vincent Redstone, and contained copies of manorial documents and wills from the village, together with an account of the archaeological investigations of some of the antiquities of Icklingham. Prigg showed that a Roman villa and cemetery had existed on the site and he also excavated the tumuli and found pottery kilns at nearby West Stow Heath. Prigg had worked at the National Provincial Bank in Bury, until he retired four years before his death in 1892. He lived at Babwell Friary, and having died in his early 50's he did not have time to put his work in order for publication, but his daughter decided the work needed to be properly published.
Henry Prigg's daughter, Beatrice, was married to Charles Andrews, a partner in the ironmongers Andrews and Plumptons of Bury. She was also the mother of Sybil Andrews who would later become an internationally known artist. Many of the antiquities unearthed by Prigg over a lifetime of excavation were exhibited at first in the Athenaeum, and then were to form the core of the Moyses Hall Museum collection when it was set up in 1899. The fifth child of Beatrice and Charles Andrews was called Henry (1904-1961), and he would become Curator of Moyses Hall Museum himself in 1933. | | 1902 | The Education Act of 1902 gave County Councils the status of local education authorities, greatly expanding their powers and their expenditure. Within a few years it was normal for half a county's budget to be devoted to education.
In 1902, the West Suffolk County School was opened in Northgate Street in Bury. A large red brick house had been purchased for the purpose, and altered and improved. At this time it was for girls and boys, with separate playgrounds. Under the same Act, the 12 elementary schools in Bury became governed by the Borough Education Committee.
In the Autumn excavations were started on the ruins of the abbey of St Edmund. Dr M R James had discovered a 15th century register from the abbey in the public library of the French town of Douai. It listed the burial places of 18 of the abbots, and this gave rise to the dig. On New Year's Day, 1903, the five stone coffins were found, described by an excited Horace Barker as "the great discovery". Horace Barker could write in 1912 that, "It will be within the memory of most inhabitants of Bury that in 1902-3 all that is left of the Chapter-house was exposed, and the skeletons of five Abbots, including the great Abbot Sampson (1182-1211), each in its own stone coffin, were discovered. Many pieces of carved, coloured and gilded stone with fragments of marble tiles and glass are preserved in Moyses Hall Museum".
King Edward VII was not crowned until August 1902.
From 1902, the Feoffment Trust had to sell off much of its property, starting with the outlying farms.
H Rider Haggard published his book "Rural England", giving an account of much local agriculture. At Culford Estates he found that about half the total area was set aside for shooting, or about 5,000 acres. Labourers were paid 12 to 14 shillings a week and cottages were let at 1s/1d a week. Southdowns and Suffolk sheep were the most profitable agriculture possible on the sandy soils. Both these and the Jersey cows were prizewinners. The estate also had a forestry enterprise.
The West Suffolk Hospital received a new operating theatre and other improvements out of a bequest of £7,600. By now the hospital had four wards and room for 84 in-patients.
For the men of the Suffolk Regiment, the ending of the three years of the Boer war led to the Battle honour of "South Africa 1899 - 1902". The South African War, as it was known at the time, would be commemorated by the fine monument erected in 1904, on the Cornhill. There were to be 194 names of the fallen, representing the whole of Suffolk, east and west.
| | 1903 | The Martyrs' Memorial was unveiled in the Churchyard at Bury, to commemorate the 17 Protestant Martyrs who died in the town under the rule of Queen Mary, 1555 to 1558. It was erected by public subscription.
In Churchgate Street fire destroyed Hervey's the Grocers. It was replaced by a three storey mock Tudor building, which Marlow's would occupy in 1925. |
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Unveiling the Soldiers Memorial
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| 1904 | The Boer War monument was erected on the Cornhill and unveiled on November 11th by General Lord Methuen. At the time, it was referred to as the Soldier's Memorial. This was a great military occasion, and the Suffolk Regiment fired three volleys. The Volunteers, the Loyal Suffolk Hussars, and the Grammar School Cadet Corps "kept the Square" with the Suffolks, and the rest of Cornhill was packed with local people. This event followed the opening of two Regimental Memorial Homes in April opposite the barracks in Out Risbygate.
The following month King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra visited Bury. They stayed at Culford Hall for five days in December, visiting the great local families and shooting over their estates. Bury was visited on their last day, Saturday 17th, and they received an official address outside the Abbey Gate. From here they took the train back to London.
The West Suffolk County Council purchased the Shire Hall from the Guildhall Feoffees. The Assizes were held here three time every two years. There were two courts, the Crown Court and the Nisi Prius Court. It would soon become called the Old Shirehall, as work began on a new premises in 1906.
In 1904 and 1905 the West Stow sewage works underwent extensive additional works.
At the Congregational Church in Whiting Street a memorial was unveiled to Elias Thacker and John Copping, who were hanged in 1583 for their religious beliefs, "for disseminating the principles of independency".
In 1904 a new 1:2500 scale base map was published for Bury. By the time of the 1904 OS map, there was an avenue shown across Shirehouse Heath labelled Northgate Avenue, and the road we now call by that name was labelled Norfolk Road. Similarly Avenue Approach was shown as extending across to the Klondyke, in front of Northgate Farm.
| | 1905 | The Education Authority arranged for the Feoffment's Commercial School to be closed, and its premises were amalgamated with the adjacent Poor Boys School. | | 1906 | In Bury, there was a big celebration on April 6th, to mark the 300th anniversary of the town's charter and a special medal was struck.
In the General Election of 1906, the Conservative Captain Frederick Hervey of Ickworth Lodge was returned for Bury St Edmunds as expected. However the result was unusually close for Bury. He got 1,481 votes, and his Liberal opponent, Mr B Yates, got 1,047 votes. By modern standards, this is a low number of votes, but only men could vote. Nationally there was a Liberal landslide.
In 1906 the Labour party was formed in Britain, to represent the working man. But there was by now a movement to extend the vote to women as well.
During the laying of the concrete pavement in Fornham Road, one of the two slanting buttresses of St Saviour's Hospital was destroyed. Nearby are the Mermaid's Pits, described in 1907 as having springs of clear water. In Northgate Avenue the East Anglian School was given a completely new wing.
Work began on alterations and additions to the Shirehall in Bury.
The Theatre in Westgate Street was re-opened following extensive renovations. It was described as handsome and luxurious and the wooden forms were replaced by crimson plush covered chairs "in line with modern requirements".
It was recorded that the engineering works of Robert Boby in St Andrews Street was employing 300 men at this time.
The distinctive Virginia Creeper on the front of the Angel Hotel is said to date from a planting in 1906. | | 1907 | For two years, Archdeacon Hodges, the Vicar of St James's, had been planning a great pageant to celebrate the historical past of Bury St Edmunds. An American called Louis Napoleon Parker was hired to be the Master of the Pageant, a job he had experience of elsewhere in the country already. The aim was to explore seven historical incidents from Roman times down to the visit of Queen Elizabeth in 1578. Thus in July 1907 the town held its Grand Pageant of St Edmund to commemorate the historical past of Bury St Edmunds. It was performed in the Abbey Gardens, and involved two thousand local people as actors, organisers, costume makers or stage hands. St Edmund was played by Dr Stork, and in a family like the Andrews of Andrews and Plumptons, the whole household were involved, including all the servants, and even 9 year old Sybil took part.
By now Rose Mead was well established as the best artist in Bury, having exhibited several times at the Royal Academy. As the whole town was involved in the Pageant it was no surprise that Rose became the Chief Costume Designer. The Suffolk Regiment provided the band, and a covered grandstand held 4,000 paying customers. There were six 3 hour performances. A set of twelve watercolours were especially painted by Rose Mead for sale as postcards, and a commemorative medal was produced for sale in silver or gold.
A film was made of the 1907 pageant and it was first shown in the Lecture Hall at the Athenaeum. The cinema was now coming to Bury.
During 1907 it became necessary to hold a bye election. The new Conservative candidate was W E Guinness, of the brewing family. As the Liberal government had refused to make any concessions to the Women's Suffrage Movement, the Suffragettes retaliated by opposing all Liberal candidates en bloc. Thus did Sylvia Pankhurst come to Bury to support Guinness, although she herself professed to support the Labour Party. The Conservative majority was doubled, and Guinness got his seat.
In November 1907, F G Pawsey and Company, Limited, of 25 and 26 Hatter Street, Bury St Edmund's, printed and published their large book entitled "West Suffolk Illustrated". It consisted of a text entry for every town and village in West Suffolk, together with at least one photograph of each place. Many of these photos were also used for postcards of the area. It was compiled by Horace Barker, the curator of Moyses Hall Museum, and its emphasis was on the history of the place, rather than its present condition. Barker reported in this book that the Pageant proved a tremendous success, both artistically and financially. After payment of all expenses a profit of about £1,000 remained.
Another result of this local pride was a movement to have commemorative plaques put on buildings associated with famous people. These included Daniel Defoe, said to have retired to Bury in 1704, Sir Thomas Hanmer, Sir G Pretyman Tomline, (Bishop of Winchester), Thomas Clarkson, and Charles Blomfield. |
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Barker also reported in this book that the streets and public buildings of Bury were now lighted by electricity from the council's own electricity works. However, he wrote that the the depression in agriculture had impaired the town's former prosperity. But it still had considerable corn and cattle markets. There were several large maltings, including Gough's, Girardot's, and Boby's as well as Greene King's own for its brewery. The St Andrews Ironworks turned out numbers of well-known machines, including Robert Boby's haymakers and his patent self-cleaning corn screening and dressing machines. Another Iron Foundry was located in Risbygate Street. The Bury Free Press newspaper appeared every Friday, as it still does today. The Bury and Norwich Post was every Tuesday, but changed to Friday's later in the year. The County School in Northgate Street received an extension, and the New Shire Hall was completed. The Shire Hall was built in an Edwardian classical style designed by A A Hunt of Bury. Sybil Andrews recalled in her later years that at this time Looms Lane was narrow, with high walls on either side. On market days it was not unusual to meet a herd of cows being driven from market along Looms Lane, leaving pedestrians little room to avoid them.
Henshalls, the ironmongers, took over Jaggard's shop on the Cornhill, and were well known until closure in 1959. | | 1908 | Prime Minister Asquith introduced the Old Age Pension.
In 1908 the Territorial Force was formed under Lord Haldane's Territorial scheme. It was the forerunner of today's Territorial Army. It was set up on County lines and the 4th Battalion The Suffolk Regiment (T.F.) was established in East Suffolk at Ipswich and 5th Battalion The Suffolk Regiment (T.F.) in West Suffolk at Bury. The 5th Battalion was formed from the old 2nd Volunteer Battalion of local men. These Battalions were part of the Norfolk and Suffolk Infantry Brigade, itself part of the East Anglian Division.
Bury's Town Hall, today called the Market Cross once again, was gutted by fire. It was soon rebuilt.
The Guildhall Feoffment Trust built College Square as Almshouses for rent to elderly people.
Mr Charters of Horringer Manor volunteered to provide the balconies at the Hospital which gave it its distinctive look for many years.
A portrait of Archdeacon Hodges, one of the prime movers of the 1907 pageant, was commissioned from Rose Mead, and for some years it hung in pride of place at Angel Corner. In 2002 it was moved into the Council Chamber at the Borough Offices, but today the artist is better known than the sitter. It was life size and the frame is ten feet tall, and was her most ambitious picture to date.
Marie Louise de la Ramée died. She was better known as Ouida, the romantic novelist, and was born in 1839 in Union Terrace, Hospital Road. Although Bury born she had little affection for the town, but was a great dog lover. After her death in 1908 readers of the Daily Mirror subscribed for a memorial drinking fountain which was installed in Out Westgate, at the foot of Vinery Road.
The Manor House in Honey Hill was bought by Walter Guinness, the 1st Baron Moyne. He owned the house until 1933, and was later to be murdered in Cairo in 1944, where he was a British Government representative. | | 1909 | At Bury, the Eastgate Street Station was closed down. It had only ever served passengers for Sudbury and Long Melford since its opening in 1865, and its closure was a cost saving measure. Passengers for this line now used the Northgate Station instead. | | 1910 | George V came to the throne. He was a Saxe-Coburg at this time, but in 1917 the family name would be changed to Windsor.
The £1,000 net proceeds from the 1907 pageant was used to build a Sanitorium, established in January 1910.
Boot's Cash Chemists and Perfumers came to Bury with a mock Tudor building on the Cornhill of a type they built all over the country. However, Boots always tried to give each one a local flavour. Its statues included St Edmund, for obvious reasons, King Edward I, for his parliaments here, Edward VI, for his Grammar School, King Canute, for founding the abbey, and Agricola, for crushing Boudicca. Today, Boots have moved a few doors away and the premises are occupied by W H Smith's.
Roller Skating began in the Corn Exchange, a use which continued for half a century. On other days it was also used for flower shows, dinners and other large scale public gatherings. | | 1911 | George V's coronation took place in June. To mark the occasion the Cemetery Road in Bury was renamed Kings Road.
Also to commemorate the coronation a subscription was started to provide a public park for the town and surrounds. The best way to do this was to acquire the rights to free access to the Abbey Gardens. They hoped to raise £650 to buy out the current tenant and compensate him for the loss of income from admission charges. This took until 1912.
By now, Bury had three small cinemas, two of which seem to have been in St Johns Street. They were the Rink Picture Palace and the Gem Electric Theatre. The Empire Picture Palace opened in 1911 in the Market Thoroughfare. Travel and news films were mixed with live variety acts.
In 1910, a group of Suffolk pig farmers set up a co-operative to process their own pigs for bacon and pork. By 1911 they had built a factory at Elmswell, known as the St Edmundsbury and Ipswich Bacon Factory Ltd, to handle about 230 pigs a week. Today the Elmswell Bacon Factory is a large modern plant, and all the original buildings are gone. | | 1912 | In 1912 the Bury St Edmunds Borough Council took out a lease of the Abbey Gardens from the fourth Marquis of Bristol for £90 a year. At the time they were usually called the Abbey Grounds. The money to buy out the previous tenant was raised by public subscription to end the practice of charging for admission. The public now had free access to the grounds, a privilege which continues today. There was a grand opening by Lady Evelyn Guiness on December 28th. Whatever the official name, a visit by local people was usually called "going to the Park". The council did not own the freehold until 1953.
Number 9 Angel Hill burnt down, and there is still a gap in the house line even today, next to Angel Corner. | | 1913 | For some years there had been a demand to have a Diocese for Suffolk. East Suffolk was in the Norwich Diocese, while West Suffolk was part of the Diocese of Ely. In 1913, an Act of Parliament created the New Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. The first Bishop, Dr H B Hodgson, was enthroned in March 1914, but lived in Ipswich. The church of St James in Bury was designated to be the cathedral church of the Diocese. This reflected the ancient division of Suffolk into east and west, but also the fact that considerable work would be needed to bring what was a parish church up to the standards needed for a Diocesan Headquarters. Firstly the church itself needed extending, and not until 1970 would any substantial new works be completed. In the absence of the Bishop, the cathedral was run by a resident Provost, who lived in the provost's house, which was the old Clopton's Asylum in the churchyard. It had already been the St James's Vicarage since 1897. |
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Great Barton Hall in 1905
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| 1914 | In January came news of a great midnight blaze at Great Barton Hall, the home of Sir Henry Bunbury. The hall was totally destroyed, along with all its contents. The Bunbury's owned practically all the property in and around Great Barton, it being the centre of a great estate, with rows of uniform estate cottages and houses of a better standard than in an open village off an estate.
Municipal telephone companies were nationalised as part of the Post Office. Only the system at Hull was exempted from this arrangement.
By now, the Theatre Royal was called the Royal Coliseum, and had become a variety hall.
In 1914 the Feoffment Trust built Long Row in Northgate Street to let to the elderly.
Little local shops had been joined by national chains in many towns by 1914. Bury had Liptons and Stead and Simpsons by 1896, to be joined by Boots, Maypole, Home and Colonial and International Stores by the outbreak of war.
The Midland Bank opened in premises at the top of Abbeygate Street in Bury.
Two suffragettes were imprisoned at the Bury Assizes charged with burning down the Bath Hotel in Felixstowe.
Britain entered the First World War on 4th August 1914, and the regulars and territorials were mobilised.
Within days the 5th Battalion, (TF) were stationed at Felixstowe at its war station, before moving to Colchester.
The regulars in the Suffolk's Second Battalion were in Ireland at the time, and were immediately sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force. The conveyance of the British Expeditionary Force across the Channel without loss was a great technical achievement.
The 2nd battalion of the Suffolk Regiment consisted of 1000 men (including 26 officers and a medical officer). They had arrived at Le Havre on 17th August, and they were sent straight into the Battle of Mons.
The 7th battalion of the Suffolk Regiment was raised at Bury St Edmunds on August 20, 1914 from volunteers. At the outbreak of the war the British army was only made up of 700,000 men. It was therefore clear that new recruits were needed. On August 8th Lord Kitchener asked for 100,000 more men. Across Britain two million men volunteered to fight in the war. They formed Service Battalions.
Meanwhile as the 2nd battalion marched northwards into Belgium the BEF were greeted enthusiastically by the local population who offered them cigarettes, eggs, food, fruit and other gifts. The BEF (of which the 2nd battalion were a part) reached the Mons-Conde canal, which runs through the northern outskirts of the Belgian town of Mons, on August 22nd. On 23rd August C and D companies of the Suffolk's 2nd battalion were ordered up to the canal to reinforce the 1st East Surrey Regiment. The Germans attacked at 8.30 am and the Suffolks soon came under heavy artillery fire. Cpl. G.M. Page, Pte. W. Flack and Pte. S.G. Goddard (all of C company) were killed, the first members of the Suffolk Regiment to die in the war. The Germans were advancing rapidly and by mid afternoon the 2nd battalion, along with the rest of the BEF were forced to retreat from Mons. The casualties of the BEF numbered approximately 1,600.
Following its defeat at Mons the BEF retreated south, chased by the German army. Just after dawn on the 26th August the Germans caught up with the 2nd Corps of the British army at Le Cateau. The 2nd Corps of the British army had been on the move for 3 days, marching 40 miles in very hot weather, along roads, thick with refugees. General Dorien knew that a battle needed to be fought to hold up the German advance. The 2nd Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment, as part of the 14th Brigade, were ordered to stay and fight the German army, whilst the majority of the 2nd Army Corps continued its retreat south. They had no time to dig trenches. During the battle the Germans controlled the high ground and there was little cover for the British soldiers. General Smith-Dorrien later wrote "Some one, certainly not I, ordered that on no account were the Suffolk's to retire. Such an order was enough for the Suffolk's. For nine hours they fought with desperate losses, their C.O., Lieut-Colonel Brett, being killed comparatively early in the day; but no thought of retirement entered their heads. ..... It is becoming more and more appreciated by the world, as facts become known and history of the war is studied, that it was the blow to the Germans delivered on the field of Le Cateau which upset their advance on Paris. The Suffolk's were one of the units which made that blow possible. I thank them, and the whole nation should be grateful to them.
....... It is not easy in a few words to express the depth of gratitude I feel to this gallant regiment for their noble self-sacrifice on that occasion."
Total British casualties during the battle are estimated at 8,000. Casualties for the 2nd battalion totalled over 700. When they arrived at Pontoise on the 28th August the battalion numbered just 229 men.
They fought in all the major battles in France for the rest of the war, and the two battalions were soon increased to 27.
The 9th battalion of the Suffolk Regiment was raised from volunteers from all over Suffolk in September, 1914.
Heavy casualties at the start of the war had exhausted the supply of regular troops. The territorials were soon asked to volunteer for overseas service, which was a grave shock as they had already left their jobs on a few minutes notice.
About 72% of the Suffolk Territorials agreed to go overseas. One of these battalions was the 4th battalion of the Suffolk Regiment. They arrived in France in November, 1914. In December they joined the Jullundur Brigade of the Lahore Division, Indian Army Corps and took part in the defence of Givenchy.
Before the end of 1914, 23 battalions of the country's territorial infantry were in France.
France was not the only theatre of war, however, as another body of amateur soldiers would discover. This was the 5th Battalion who became divided into the 1/5th Suffolks, who would serve overseas, and the 2/5th Suffolks who would remain on duty in the UK.
Civilians were not immune to the needs of war. Young women like Sybil Andrews might be called upon to help. She went off to London to train as a welder, and was sent to Coventry to weld aeroplane parts. Later she would be moved to Bristol to weld the very first all metal planes for the Bristol Welding Company. | | 1915 | In France, conditions during the first winter of the war were awful. Both the 1st and 2nd battalions of the Suffolk Regiment spent much of their time in Flanders, defending the Ypres salient. Trenches were feet deep in water, and bombardments and attacks were frequent. Mud was everywhere, and Trench Foot become a familiar condition. The 1st battalion took 300 casualties in two weeks in February when ordered to take some forward positions. The 2nd battalion, holding their lines lost casualties to constant sniper and rifle grenade actions. In times of war many factories had to convert to munitions production. The agricultural engineers, Robert Boby of St Andrews Street, were sub - contracted to Vickers for this purpose. Often it was kept secret what the parts they made would be used for. After the war the link to Vickers would continue.
In 1914, Germany had ten Zeppelin Air ships, but the army recognised its military potential and bagan a building programme. The first significant raid on England was in January 19th, 1915, when the Thames and Humber estuaries were attacked. This led on January 25th to the "Order as to lights in the County of Suffolk", in which public lighting was to be reduced to the minimum consistent with safety, and powerful external lights had to be kept extinguished.
Neuve Chappelle was the first major offensive of the British army during the war, from March 10th to 13th. On the first day of the battle British and Indian troops were able to capture the village of Neuve Chapelle. On 12th March the 4th Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment was at the head of an attack on Bois du Biez. They advanced through a heavy German artillery barrage. Severe fighting lasted until well into the afternoon. 217 men of the 4th Battalion were killed in the battle of Neuve Chapelle. However, it was the first time that British troops had driven the Germans from well established positions on a large scale. The following were awarded the D.C.M. for gallantry in the field at Neuve Chapelle: Sgts. W. Pettitt and A.E. Pendle; L/Sgt. W. Smith; Pte. P.E. Stones.
In April the Germans launched their second major offensive in Flanders. At about 5 p.m. on the 22nd April the Germans attacked the north-eastern edge of the Ypres salient. For the first time in the war they used gas as a weapon against the British troops. Allied casualties numbered 65,000. German casualties are estimated at 35,000. |
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On the night of April 29th / 30th, 1915 a Zeppelin airship appeared over Bury on a bright moonlit night and dropped about 40 incendiary bombs and 4 of explosives. The LZ 38 was brand new and was 536 feet long, with a crew of 22. It had four engines and could carry two tons of bombs at a top speed of 60 mph. That night it had bombed Great Yarmouth, moved south to Ipswich, dropping only a few incendiaries there, and then followed the A45 to Bury. There was a full moon and the airship swung north of the town to attack Moreton Hall by about half past midnight. Flying over the Northgate Station, a bomb blew up a tree in Northgate Avenue near the East Anglian School. Whitmore's timber yard was hit, as was Aetna Road. In the town centre, the electric street lights were on, despite the Lighting Order, and house lights also came on as people woke up to see what all the noise was. Several incendiaries were dropped, one hitting number 8 Angel Hill. In the Buttermarket, Day's shop was set ablaze as were the adjacent shops, numbers 30 to 33. Four buildings were damaged between the Suffolk Hotel and the Half Moon public house. A gap remained in the building line until after the second world war. The attack moved to St Andrews Street, and Kings Road was hit. One bomb just missed the hospital, but more damage was done in St Andrews Street as the Boby Engineering works was attacked. Westley village was bombed at the end of the 20 minute attack. There were no deaths except for a dog and some hens. As the raider returned to Germany, the village of Woolpit was bombed, leaving a 50 foot diameter crater at the Woolpit Warren.
The Bury Free Press ran a series of anti German articles, with veiled references to a supposedly pro German local innkeeper. The Griffin was attacked by locally billetted Royal Engineers on 15th May, following these articles. On 17th May, the West Suffolk County Council dismissed its Weights and Measures Inspector because his parents were German. This sort of thing was happening nationwide. Brahams scrap merchants had to take out advertisements to proclaim that they had "not the slightest taint of German blood in them".
Following basic training the volunteers of the 7th battalion left for France in May, 1915.
In France, at Ypres, on May 6 the Germans pushed the allies off Hill 60, with a devastating gas attack. They were now ready to launch a fresh attack with the aim of capturing Ypres itself. The full force of the German attack was concentrated on the British line between Bellewaerde Ridge and Frezenberg Ridge. This is where the 1st Suffolk's were positioned. The battalion had gone into the trenches on 17th April and remained there ever since. The Second Battle of Ypres had begun on the day they were due to relieved.
The 1st Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment was virtually wiped out at The Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. The casualties on May 8th were over 400. Of the whole battalion only 30 men returned from the battle for Frezenberg Ridge.
The 11th battalion of the Suffolk regiment was mainly made up of volunteers from Cambridgeshire. On May 19th, 1915 the 11th battalion were sent to the Yorkshire moors for training.
On 9th May, a new draft of soldiers arrived at Poperinghe from Felixstowe. They were met by just 27 survivors from the trenches. On 24th May the 84th Brigade (of which the 1st Battalion was part) were ordered to recover some trenches that had been lost during a German attack. The battalion, now less than 400 strong moved towards Ypres in readiness for an attack on Ballewaarde farm. Bellewaarde Farm was to be taken at all costs. By the end of the battle of Ballewaarde the 1st battalion had been reduced to just 184 men. In six weeks the 1st Battalion had suffered over 1000 casualties.
After the battle of Bellewarde the 2nd Battalion of Suffolks were occupied digging trenches in the Ypres Salient, including the famous Oxford Street.
The 4th Battalion took part in the battle of St. Julien, and suffered 50 casualties.
The 12th battalion was originally formed as a bantam battalion (consisting of men between 5 foot and 5 foot 2 inches). Enlistment began on 21 June, 1915 after the war office decided to drop the minimum height of men who were allowed to join the army to 5 foot (previously it had been 5 foot, 2 inches). Recruits came from Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. One of the main problems during training was that many of the bantams were under the regulation age and parents kept reclaiming them. 133 youths were eventually discharged from the battalion.
The 8th battalion, all of whom were volunteers, landed in France on July 25th, 1915 and were moved to the Albert sector.
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On July 30th the 1/5th Suffolks took the Aquitania from Liverpool to Lemnos. On August 10th they were ferried to Suvla Bay in Gallipoli to join the Anzacs to help fight the Turkish Army. By August 15th they had advanced with other territorial units of the 54th Division some 1,500 yards under heavy fire. Inside 72 hours, 11 officers and 178 other ranks of the 1/5th were killed or wounded. On into September, conditions were extreme in heat and privation as well as under constant fire. In September the Suffolks were defending Hill 60, a fine observation post, which had been hard won by Australians, New Zealanders and the 5th Connaught Rangers. The allies had lost 1,000 men but the Turks had lost 5,000. Hill 60 was littered with the dead. The Turkish trenches were often only 30 yards away, and parapets were in many places made of no more than dead bodies. Although the men were frequently moved to other trenches, the stench continued for months.
By mid November freezing conditions replaced the blazing heat, while everyday was action, taking, losing and re-taking lines on Hill 60. Finally, after four months of the worst conditions imaginable, the batallion were pulled out of the fighting on December 7th. They had lost 782 men and 36 officers.By December 17th they were in Egypt, at Sidi Bishr.
The 9th battalion left for France on August 30, 1915. On September 22 they reached Ham-en-Artois. They then moved on to Bethune. By the time they arrived, on the morning of September 25, the battalion had marched for four nights in succession, covering a distance of 70 miles. The night marches, frequently in rain, had left the men exhausted.
Despite this the battalion moved off to the front line at noon. At 8 p.m. the advance began. The 9th Suffolk's battalion were in the front line of the attack launched by the 24th Division. During the attack the battalion suffered 135 casualties.
One of the casualties was Sergeant A.F. Saunders, the first member of the Suffolk regiment to win a Victoria Cross in the war. Despite being seriously wounded in the thigh he took charge of two machine guns and with a few other men supported four charges of another battalion. When they were forced back Sergeant Saunders stuck to one of his guns and did his best to cover their retreat. Sergeant Saunders had only recently arrived at the front. Just 25 days after arriving in France the 9th battalion had been sent into battle.
The 7th battalion arrived at Loos on the last day of September, taking over trenches on the edge of the Chalk Pit which had been captured in the main attack. They soon came under a heavy artillery bombardment which buried many members of the battalion. Their medical officer, Captain Hackett, came over the open ground to help at the Chalk Pit and was later awarded the Military Cross.
From 25th September to 4th November, the British attack at Loos was part of a two pronged allied offensive meant to deal a big knock out blow to the German army. At 2 a.m. on October 3rd the 1st battalion took part in a night attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt.
On the afternoon of the 13th October the 7th battalion attacked two trenches held by the Germans known as the Hairpin. They met heavy opposition and suffered many casualties, one of whom was the poet Charles Sorley.
Between the 8th and the 21st October the 2nd Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment lived in Maple copse, companies paying nightly visits to Sanctuary Wood and filling in trenches in No Man's Land.
In November the 4th Suffolk Territorials, from East Suffolk, left for France. | | 1916 | Throughout 1916, the 1/5th Suffolks, who were a Territorial Force, were stationed in Egypt, defending various posts such as the Sphinx and suez Canal from possible Turkish attack.
In January, 1916 the 11th battalion Suffolk Regiment, all of them volunteers, was sent to France.
In France, in the lines at Ypres, at about 2 a.m. on the 22nd of January, 1916, the Germans exploded a mine under the trenches held by the 2nd Batallion of the Suffolks in front of the Bluff, close to the Ypres-Comines Canal. The charge in the mine is estimated to have been between six and seven tons of gunpowder, which formed a crater measuring roughly sixty by forty yards, and forty feet in depth. Nearly a hundred men were killed, buried alive or injured by the explosion.
On the 3rd February, the village of Loos and the trenches occupied by the 4th battalion, Suffolk Regiment, were subjected to an intense bombardment , shells coming over at the rate of between forty and fifty a minute for no less than seven hours. This was the worst day's shelling the Battalion ever experienced.
Air power returned to Bury when a Zeppelin appeared overhead on Friday 31st March, and bombed the Buttermarket. Seven naval airships and three army airships raided various targets in eastern England that night. This raid was more serious than the year before. The munitions factory at Stowmarket was attacked, as was Sudbury. At Bury, the street lights were turned off this time, but the bombing run began from the station towards the town. This time seven people were killed and several premises destroyed. These deaths were in Raingate Street and Springfield Road, and there was a great deal of destruction, but accounts now published were deliberately vague as to locations. Mill Road and Chalk Road houses were hit, possibly in an attempt to attack the old barracks in Kings Road, or the engineering works of Robert Boby. St Mary's Vicarage and Prussia Lane were bombed. Eastgate Street station was hit.
Zeppelins roamed freely around over East Anglia for several more nights after the 31st March, and official records say that 28 people were killed and 44 injured over this period. Zeppelin navigation was not very good and we now know from German records that it was often the case that they attacked quite different towns to where they thought they were. Airships made 20 attacks in 1915, and 23 in 1916, but only 7 in 1917 and 4 in 1918. |
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On June 4th, 1916 the 12th battalion left for France.
In June, 1916 the 8th battalion were once again in the Somme region of France, part of the strengthening and support necessary before a counter attack could happen.
In Suffolk June 1916 saw the first battle trials of the new secret weapon, the tank. A mock battle was staged at Elveden. A secret extension to the railway line was built from the Bury to Thetford line at Culford Lodge. The new line was used to deliver the tanks to the testing area.
Not until July was the British Army in France thought strong enough, with a fully equipped and trained force, to press home the war. But on 1st July they went into the Battle of the Somme, which would last until November. At 7.30, am on a hot, sunny morning 60,000 British troops, laden down with 66 pounds of equipment, left their trenches and advanced in a straight line towards the German trenches. Despite a week long barrage, the German defences were still intact. British troops were cut down in their thousands by German machine gunners. As the day went on another 40,000 soldiers were sent into the battle. By the end of the first day the British army had suffered 60,000 casualties (a third of whom had been killed). This was the worst day of casualties suffered by any army during the war and the bloodiest day in the history of the British army.
On July 1st the 11th battalion of the Suffolk Regiment took part in the first day of the Battle of the Somme. They were all volunteers from Cambridgeshire. The 11th Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment belonged to the 34th Division, whose position in the front of the attack on July 1st was opposite the village of La Boiselle. The 11th Battalion's casualties (691) were the largest of any single battalion in the division.
The attack on La Boiselle was part of the battle of Albert. During this battle the 11th battalion was virtually wiped out. One of the casualties was Oliver Hopkin, whose letters home contain vivid descriptions of the first day of the battle. On the 11th July what was left of the 11th battalion took part in the battle of Pozieres, losing 100 men in a single night's fighting.
On July 3rd the 7th battalion took part in the frontal attack on Ovillers. At the third line of resistance, after very severe fighting, the attack was brought to a standstill, the battalion losing heavily. All the company commanders were killed. The casualties amounted to 470 of all ranks.
On July 15th the 4th battalion were sent to support the Middlesex regiment in an attack on Switch trench. They suffered over 200 casualties. On the 20th they supported the 19th Brigade in an attack on High Wood, once again they met heavy opposition and casualties were high. On August 16th the 4th battalion were once again involved in an attack in the High Wood area when they advanced on Wood Lane Trench. In this attack their casualties were 196.
At midnight on July 18th - 19th the 53rd Brigade was unexpectedly launched, at very short notice and without reconnaissance, in counter-attack designed with the object of clearing the village of Longueval and Delville Wood. The Brigade included the 8th Suffolk volunteer battalion. Although this counter-attack was unsuccessful, the line in the village was advanced about three hundred yards. The casualties in the battalion were considerable, amounting to 8 officers and 230 other ranks.
The second battalion moved up into the line south-west of Trones Wood. On August 16 orders were received to carry out an attack in cooperation with the French. After 3 days, the battalion reassembled at Talus Bois and marched back to Happy Valley having sustained 281 casualties.
The 9th battalion moved to the south-eastern edge of Ginchy on September 11th. On September 13th the battalion took part in an attack by the 6th Division on the Quadrilateral. Captain Ensor with his orderly went out twice and tried to bring in a wounded Liutenant Macdonald, but after carrying him for about two hundred yards the orderly was shot dead. Captain Ensor, however, had succeeded in getting Lieut. Macdonald within the zone of his own stretcher-bearers, who brought him in. Lieut MacDonald eventually recovered, though in hospital for five and a half years.
On September 15th the offensive was resumed. The 9th battalion suffered over 200 casualties. Among the wounded was Captain Ensor. Captain Ensor's wounds proving severe, this heroic officer was eventually invalided out of the army. In the spring of 1917 he was awarded the M.C.
The 8th battalion of volunteers took over - on September 24th - a portion of the line just south of Thiepval. This attack, now fixed for September 26th, had been very carefully rehearsed by the whole battalion over specially prepared trenches. The 8th Battalion were therefore in the forefront of the battle. As soon as the barrage started the whole battalion moved forward. Within six minutes Joseph trench, together with a large number of prisoners, had been captured, and after another similar period the first objective had been carried. Well within an hour the leading companies, following the barrage closely, had captured the second objective, where they were halted until the assault of the final objective began. It was not until half-past two that all the objectives had been gained. In these operations they captured some trench mortars, machine-guns, and automatic rifles; their casualties amounted to over two hundred.
On October 11th the 7th battalion, received orders to take part in an attack on Bayonet trench and Luisenhof farm, which had been fixed for the 12th. The battalion sustained over five hundred casualties. Of the fourteen officers who went over the top on that occasion all became casualties.
on the 12th November, the 2nd Battalion was in the trenches at Serre sector for an attack. The whole trench area was waterlogged and in such a deplorable state that the battalion, abandoning the communication trenches entirely, moved into its assembly positions across the open.
At 5 a.m. on November 13th the first wave floundered forward into No Man's Land - in reality, a sea of mud in which movement was barely possible. In spite of the atrocious weather conditions prevailing, portions of the leading Suffolk companies actually reached the German second line. But all was in vain, and the battalion remained there for the rest of the day. Their casualties numbered 272.
The battle of Serre, as it was called in the battalion, or that of the Ancre, to give it its official title, was the last of the Somme battles of 1916.
The Battle of the Somme had lasted for six months. During this time British casualties reached over 400,000. The maximum advance of the British army was 6 ½ miles. The Somme was the first major battle fought by Kitchener's army of volunteers.
Christmas 1916 was the coldest in living memory on the western front. The French wanted a one-million man attack and Lloyd George agreed to place British forces under French control.
In Yarmouth the corporation refused to employ conscientious objectors on the construction of sea defences. | | 1917 | In February the Germans announced unrestricted submarine warfare on merchant shipping. In Haverhill the gas failed and the town was in darkness for several days.
The 1/5 Suffolks (TF) continued training in Egypt. On 3rd March, they saw tanks for the first time. There had been rumours for weeks of this new machine, but some had now arrived in Alexandria. The 54th Division, of which the 1/5 Suffolks were part were moved to take the ridge called Sheik Abbas to support an attack on Turkish held Palestine, at Gaza. They came under fire on March 26th, but after two days they were pulled back.
In March the government completed its take over of the coal mines. The taking over of badly cultivated farms was reported to the West Suffolk War Agricultural Committee. The committee also launched a crusade against rabbits, sparrows and rats etc.. Some 2,360 acres of Brandon Hall Estate were sold off.
In France the Battles of Arras took place during early April, followed by late April and early May, 1917. On Easter Sunday 1917, the Chaplain of the 2nd Battalion Suffolks celebrated Communion in the Chalk Caves at Arras. The next day the battalion was involved in a successful attack on a German stronghold called the Harp.
On April 9th the 11th battalion played a leading role in the first battle of the Scarpe. At 5.30 a.m. the battalion (now 600 strong) advanced to attack the German system of trenches.They managed to achieve their objectives but a cost of 150 casualties.
On the 10th April the 7th battalion took part in a successful attack during the first battle of the Scarpe. On 28th April the battalion took part in the battle of Arleux (an attack delivered on an eight mile front by British and Canadian troops). All the officers, except the Colonel, were killed or wounded. What was left of the 7th battalion was organised into two weak companies and went into reserve until mid-May.
On April 11th, at very short notice and without preparation, the 2nd battalion was ordered to take part in an attack on the village of Guemappe. Casualties amounted to 124. Thus the battalion's undisputed success in the opening phase of the first battle on April 9th was followed two days later by a complete failure.
Zero hour on April 23rd was fixed for 4.45 a.m., the British troops attacking on a front of about nine miles. The 4th Battalion Suffolks with two companies in the front line and two in support, was to attack southwards down its trenches as far as the edge of the Sensee valley. Ground was won, but by 3pm the enemy were back at the barricades of the morning. Their casualties in the struggle for Guemappe on April 23rd amounted to 315.
On April 28th the 11th battalion took part in the 101st Brigade's attack on the chemical works north of Roeux, which formed part of the battle of Arleux. During this battle the 11th battalion suffered 300 casualties.
On June 12th the 2nd battalion took over trenches near Monchy-le-Preux, moving the following night into their assembly positions for an attack on Infantry Hill. On June 14th the attack was launched. Within ten minutes Hook trench had been captured, and an hour later the remainder of the trench system on the hill fell into British hands. The casualties in the battalion between June 13th and 18th amounted to 250.
In April the United States declared war on Germany. In Bury war shrines were dedicated in the cathedral. On Good Friday there was a gas explosion in a house at Broad Street in Haverhill.
The British and the Canadians attacked Vimy Ridge in April and the Canadians took the ridge. The French were less fortunate and lost 90,000 men in one day at the Chemin des Dames. Their morale devastated, many French soldiers preferred mutiny to continuing with further attacks.
In Egypt, a second attack on Sheik Abbas was launched on April 16th, including the 1/5th Suffolks, the 1/5th Norfolks and the 1/4th Norfolks. The ridge was taken after two days, and they remained here until June.
Petain now took over the French army to rebuild confidence on 28th April. At Ypres General Haig was looking for a further attack on Messines and Passchendael Ridges where the Germans were overlooking and shelling them. They dug long tunnels up to 9 km under the German lines at Messines, with silent digging techniques. These tunnels had been dug since 1915. On 7th June 1917 massive mines were exploded and resulting deep lakes still exist today at Messines. Some 25,000 Germans died and the attack succeeded.
Back in Bury in May, the Mayor read out a royal proclamation that everybody should save stocks of food by eating a quarter less bread every week. There were regular cases of farmers or shopkeepers fined for selling produce at above the nationally set prices.
In June a war shrine was set up near the gates of the Bury Cemetery.
At the end of June, the 1/5th Suffolks moved to Samson's Ridge overlooking Gaza, and General Allenby took over command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force.
Between July 31st and November 10th the British launched a series of attacks known as the Third Battle of Ypres, or more simply Passchendaele. Passchendael Ridge was not attacked until July and on 31st the infantry attacked. Late in the day a torrential storm turned the battlefield into a sea of mud. It rained for four days and nights and heavy shelling produced a wasteland.
During these dark days in France, many people began to believe that Germany would win the war. There was an upsurge of anti-German feeling at home. People with foreign sounding names were victimised, and businesses attacked. In this climate of hate, the name of the royal house was changed from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor by royal proclamation on 17th July.
In August the first American soldiers led by General Pershing marched through London en route to the Front.
In August the 11th Battalion of the Suffolks had taken part in a successful attack on Malakhoff farm and the trench system in front of Hargicourt. It was in this action that Cpl. Day won the V.C.
On 20th September a further allied attack took place along the Ypres - Menin Road.
On September 23rd the 4th battalion moved up to Bellegoed farm, in readiness for the battle of Polygon Wood. On the 26th the 4th battalion were involved in a British counter-attack which aimed to recapture the trench system lost on the 25th. They advanced at 5.25 a.m., eventually managing to re-capture the lost trenches but at a cost of 265 casualties.
In Bury in September, a fete was held in the Abbey Gardens to raise money for the Suffolk Prisoners of War Fund, and £640 was raised.
In October, two German Prisoners of War, who had escaped from Kedington Camp, were recaptured in Norfolk. An Order was issued allowing one pound of potatoes to be added to every seven pounds of flour to allow more bread to be produced. By October the battle still continued at Ypres and 200,000 casualties resulted. Haig believed in a long war of attrition and insisted on continued deadly attacks.
After being sent to Flanders in early October, the 11th battalion of the Suffolk Regiment was transferred the 5th Army and were based around Proven.
At midnight on October 11th - 12th the 8th Suffolk battalion began moving up towards Rose trench, situated near Poelcappelle on the Langemarck side. This was in preparation for the first battle of Passchendaele. The valleys of the streams were altogether impassable and further operations were abandoned. The battalion sustained 232 casualties. Sargeant Berry of the Rifle Brigade reported the following;
" We heard screaming coming from another crater a bit away. I went over to investigate with a couple of the lads. It was a big hole and there was a fellow of the 8th Suffolk's in it up to his shoulders. So I said 'Get your rifles, one man in the middle to stretch them out, make a chain and let him get hold of it.' But it was no use. It was too far to stretch, we couldn't get any force on it, and more wee pulled and the far more he struggled the further he seemed to go down He went down gradually. He kept begging us to shoot him. But we couldn't shoot him. Who could shoot him? We stayed with him, watching him go down in the mud. And he died. He wasn't the only one. There must have been thousands up there who died in the mud."
The Canadians finally took Passchendael after 99 days and with the gain of only 5 miles progress over 250,000 lives were lost on all sides. On 17th October it was announced that Corporal S J Day, of the Suffolk Regiment, was awarded a Victoria Cross for valour.
On 25th October the 2nd battalion went into the line and started to prepare for the battle of Polygon Wood. During the battle for Zonnebeke the 2nd battalion suffered 258 casualties.
On 20th November British forces launched a surprise attack on German positions around Cambrai, using almost 400 tanks. This was the first mass use of tanks in history. Hitherto only small numbers had been deployed in any one battle. By the time the battle ended the British army had suffered 40,000 casualties.
By nine o'clock in the morning of November 20th the 9th Battalion of the Suffolks had seized its objective, capturing the village of Marcoing, 150 prisoners and 3 machine guns. During the advance the battalion suffered 70 casualties.
On November 19th the 7th battalion arrived at Peiziere and moved into their assembly positions for the Cambrai offensive next day. The 7th battalion suffered 232 casualties. However, 28 of the men from the battalion who had been captured during the German attack managed to escape and rejoined the battalion on December 3rd. A roll call on the same day showed the strength of the battalion to be just 250.
The Suffolk Regiment's 7th Battalion was almost completely wiped out at Cambrai.
On 17th November the 4th battalion moved to Abraham heights, near Passchendaele. The following day they went into Passchendaele itself sustaining a number of casualties. The battalion remained in the Passchendaele area until December.
By the time that the British finally seized control of Passchendaele ridge in November their casualties had risen to over 300,000 and there was no chance of a major breakthrough. |
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In Egypt, or more accurately, Palestine, the 1/5th Suffolks joined the attack on El Arish Redoubt on November 2nd. After a few days the Redoubt was taken and the third battle of Gaza was fought and won by the 11th November. The 54th Territorial Brigade now pressed on north, towards Jaffa. There were several encounters with the retreating Turkish army. Jerusalem fell on December 9th. By Christmas Day the rain had produced so much mud, that conditions were miserable.
The Corn Production Act guaranteed minimum prices and wages to encourage more home grown food during the war. A new Rationing Scheme was introduced in England on 12th November to encourage the utmost economy in using food by all classes and all persons.
During August 1917 the Guildhall Feoffment Trust had to sell the Angel Hotel in Bury to raise money. It made £3,100, not a great sum for the property involved. The property had been given to the Feoffees by William Tassell in 1557, to support their charitable and corporate duties. | | 1918 | The 8th battalion of the Suffolk Regiment in France learnt that it was to be disbanded on January 28th. On February 7th three drafts of over 600 men left to join the 2nd, 4th and 7th battalions.
The 9th battalion was also disbanded at the end of January. On February 5th drafts of men from the battalion were transferred to the 11th and 12th battalions.
In the new year the 1/5th Suffolks were in Wilhelmina, a German religious colony in Palestine. The wet weather at least gave them some time to rest. This area was now the front line in Palestine and skirmishes continued over it. In April the Batallion was taken under the command of Major Campbell. During the retreat from Mons with the Suffolk Regiment, he had been captured at Le Cateau, been a prisoner in Germany for 3 years, and then escaped to return to the war.
In the spring of 1918 the Germans launched an offensive that they hoped would win the war. One million German soldiers attacked along a 50 mile front. By the end of the offensive the Germans had penetrated 40 miles into allied lines but they had been fought to a standstill. In trying to repel the German offensive the British suffered over 200,000 casualties.
A notable action came in France on 28th March 1918 at Wancourt (1st Battle of Arras 1918) during the great March offensive by the Germans. The German offensive began on March 21st and the 2nd battalion suffered from heavy bombardment. On the 23rd they were ordered to withdraw to the front line of the reserve system, to the north-west of Wancourt village. On March 27th the 2nd battalion moved into front line trenches overlooking Wancourt. These trenches were no more than three feet deep. At 4 a.m. on March 28th the German bombardment opened on these trenches. By eleven o'clock a German breakthrough on the right had been halted within a hundred yards of the battalion H.Q. The two front companies of the 2nd battalion of the Suffolk Regiment were outflanked and fighting desperately, under Captain W Simpson of Bury and Captain L Baker from Lavenham. They fought on without the covering fire that would have been provided by the machine guns at battalion H.Q, as these guns had been wiped out. The Times newspaper reported:
'There is a story, such as painters ought to make immortal and historians to celebrate, of how certain Suffolks, cut off and surrounded, fought back to back on the Wancourt-Tilloy road.'
Eventually they were forced to surrender. In a single days fighting the battalion's casualties totalled over 400.
The 11th battalion were part of the 34th division and were positioned in the Sensee valley. On March 21st at 5 a.m. they came under heavy German bombardment and the battalion was badly gassed. By the end of the battles of the Lys the 11th battalion had sustained almost 500 casualties.
The 12th battalion were part of the 121st Brigade and were positioned between St Leger and the Mory-Ecoust road. By the end of the battle of Baupaume the battalion had suffered 367 casualties. Every officer, with the exception of Major Lloyd and the doctor had been killed, wounded or was missing.
The 7th battalion sustained 256 casualties from 26th to 28th March. The battalion had consisted largely of drafts recently arrived, most of the officers being themselves new arrivals who had had no opportunity of getting to know their men.
The 15th battalion had been fighting on the eastern front. On April 3rd the 15th battalion learnt that it was to leave Palestine for France. On May 7th they arrived at Marseilles. They were then sent to Noyelles for training. The battalion eventually went into the line in front of St. Venant, near the river Lys.
On April 9th and 10th the 12th battalion were involved in the defence of Fleurbaix. In under a week they had sustained 423 casualties. At the start of May the 12th battalion was reduced to a training cadre and in June they left for England
At the beginning of May, whilst at Acheux, the 7th battalion received orders to amalgamate with the 1st Cambridgeshire regiment. Between May 11th and May 17th the battalion did its last tour of duty in the trenches.
The 12th battalion had landed in England on June 17th. On the 19th 700 new drafts arrived. By July 5th the battalion was back in France and joining the 43rd brigade (14th Division).
After the German spring offensive ground to a halt the allies launched a major counter-offensive on 18th July, 1918, that would eventually force the Germans back to their own border with France and end the war.
On August 23 the 2nd battalion were invoved in an attack on Gomiecourt. German trenches were captured, along with 500 prisoners. The 2nd battalion sustained 188 casualties.
The battalion moved on the night of the 29th - 30th into assembly positions for the attack on At dawn on August 30 the 2nd battalion attacked the villages of Ecoust St. Mein and Noreuil. The village of Ecoust was taken easily, but the battalion, unable to maintain itself in its advanced position, was compelled at the end of about six hours to fall back on the line of the Ecoust trench. The casualties, amounted to over 200. In this action C.S.M. J H Jones, M.M., and Pte. H. H. Roberts held on to their ground for five hours after the battalion had withdrawn.
During August the 11th battalion advanced as part of the 183rd brigade (61st division). They had to move forward cautiously as the Germans had laid mines and traps everywhere. The battalion were also caught in heavy barrages of gas shells and machine gun fire. By the end of August the battalion had sustained 334 casualties.
At the end of August the15th battalion, who had come to France in May from Palestine, were moved to Maricourt, in the Somme region of France. From September 5th to the 7th the battalion took part in an attack on the Templeux-la-Fosse and Gurlu wood system of trenches, sustaining around 100 casualties.
Early in September the 12th battalion set off for the Ypres salient.
On September 2nd at 10 a.m., one company of the 2nd battalion, under Captain W.J. Nagle, M.C were ordered to advance and 'clear up' Vraucourt switch and Macaulay avenue. They sustained 9 casualties but captured over a mile of trench, 400 prisoners and many machine guns.
On September 27th the 2nd battalion attacked the village of Flesquieres. They quickly seized the village, capturing a large number of prisoners and machine guns but sustained 150 casualties. On the morning of the 30th the battalion were involved in an attack on Rumilly. It was not until the evening that the village was captured, by this time the battalion had suffered 180 casualties. A further 135 casualties were sustained early in October, during an attack on Seranvillers.
On the 28th September,British troops attacked, without a preliminary bombardment, on a front of 5 miles south of the Ypres-Zonnebeke road. The 12th battalion attacked with two companies in front and two companies in support. A company attacked from the front, with B company wheeling round and circling it from the left. The Bluff was defended by many machine guns and trench mortars and the battalion suffered 122 casualties. However, the battalion was able to capture the Bluff, along with 200 German prisoners, one 77mm. gun, two 6-inch trench mortars and 13 machine guns.
In Palestine, September 19th saw a general attack on Turkish lines. The objective for the Suffolks was Observation Hill, which they took "like hares", so great was the speed and dash of their attack. In the next month 75,000 prisoners were taken. The 1/5th Suffolks were in Haifa by 27th September, and en route for Beirut the news came of the Armistice with Turkey on October 30th. On November 28th the Battalion sailed for Cairo.
Early in October the 4th battalion were moved to Cite St.Pierre.
Early in October the 15th battalion took over a sector of the front line around Neuve Chapelle. On October 16th they moved up to the Lille canal where they met heavy opposition and the battalion was forced to withdraw. British troops eventually captured Lille on October 18. On November 9 the battalion entered Tournai, it was here on the 11th that they heard news of the armistice.
In October the 11th Battalion were involved in the battle of the Selle, asustaining 274 casualties. On October 27th the 11th Battalion were ordered to advance and ascertain the enemy's strength on the river Rhonelle, and if possible to force a passage and form a bridge-head. In this operation Cpl. S F Staden, M.M., in the face of close-range fire, led his platoon to the river - which he himself crossed carrying a Lewis gun - in a vain but heroic attempt to rush an emplacement. When the enemy had been driven back the grave of this corporal was discovered marked with a cross (with his identity disc fastened thereto) on which was inscribed in German the epitaph, "To a very brave Englishman".
At 5.20 a.m. on October 23rd the 2nd battalion reached the outskirts of Romeries and managed to capture a German battery. There casualties were 114. On November 10th the battalion marched to La Longueville, a town they had last seen in August, 1914. The next day they heard news of the armistice.
After over 4 years of terrible bloodshed, fighting finally ended on the Western front at 11.a.m. on the November 11th. In total, 23 new Battalions of the Suffolk Regiment were raised during the Great War and two VC's were awarded. Sergeant Saunders of the 9th Battalion received his VC for action at Loos in September 1915 and Corporal Day of the 11th near Peronne in 1917.
In 1918 the Guildhall Feoffment Trust sold most of its remaining properties in Bury. No Mans Meadow failed to meet its reserve price and is still owned by the Trust in 2000.
The Capital and Counties Bank in Bury became a branch of Lloyd's Bank, and remains so today. The building still stands on the Butter Market, where it was built in 1795 to 1797 as Spink and Carss Bank. From 1829 to 1899 it had been Oakes and Bevan's Bank, before becoming Capital and Countiesin 1899. The bank sign still has Bevan's Beehive mark and Oakes's Oak tree.
At the end of the war, Sybil Andrews returned to Bury, having been away on vital war work for the duration. By now she was taking a correspondence course in art and was determined to pursue this at nights, after teaching during the day. She would meet another art enthusiast, Cyril Power, who had set up an architectural practice at 4 Crown Street, following his return from war in the Royal Flying Corps. Power was to encourage and guide Sybil in her drawing of street scenes.
Women also got some rewards for their war work, when women over 30 were given the vote. The vote was also given to men over 21, who had lived at the same address for six months. In the 1918 elections, W E Guinness was unopposed, so there was no chance to see any local impact of these changes.
| | 1919 | In January and February some of the 1/5th Suffolks returned home from Egypt, but rioting in Cairo slowed up the demobilisation. Not until May did they all get away.
On July 19th 1919 Bury held its celebrations of the peace, and next day the great Peace Procession was held in central London. Bury was presented with a captured German Kiffir Tank, to reward the town's contribution to the war effort. It stood by the Abbey Ruins, until 1939, when it was scrapped for the new war effort.
The cadre and colours of the 1/5th Battalion did not return to Bury until November, to be welcomed by the Mayor on the Cornhill.
The Local Government Board was dissolved because of poor administration and its functions transferred to the new Ministry of Health.
In Bury, their first Council Houses were completed by Bury Borough Council at Grove Park
Rose Mead's mother died at the age of 92. Rose Mead had started an international art career until being called home to Bury to nurse her mother in 1897. By now herself 52, Rose Mead had lost her ambition for national exhibitions, and would remain a well known and respected local figure, but little known on the wider scene. However, many local artists were grateful to her for help and encouragement in their early years, including Sybil Andrews. She remained a prolific painter of portraits, as well as a wide range of other subjects, right up to her death in 1946. She was producing excellent work in her Crown Street studio throughout the 1920's and 30's.
In about 1919 Sybil Andrews set up her first studio in a second storey room in Crescent House, overlooking the Angel Hill. She would have been about 21 years old. Her mentor Cyril Power had a studio in the same building.
The Forestry Commission was set up. The purpose was to produce timber for a nation almost entirely dependent on imports.
The Brewers, Greene King of Bury, bought up the Haverhill Brewery of Mr. Christmas. | | 1920 | In February the 1/5th Battalion of Territorials held a Reunion Dinner in the Corn Exchange in Bury, with 800 all ranks from across Suffolk in attendance.
On March 15th, the Suffolk Regimental Cenotaph was dedicated inside St Mary's Church in Bury. It was erected by subscriptions from all units of the Regiment.
Major Lake, who ran the Greene King Brewery, bought the Theatre in Westgate Street, in an attemp to revive its fortunes. Within 5 years the rival attractions of the Central Cinema in Hatter Street and the Playhouse in Buttermarket had sealed its fate as a theatre. It would become a barrel store for the brewery until the 1960's. |
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| 1921 | The 1917 Corn Production Act was repealed and agriculture again fell into depression as corn prices plummeted.
The War Memorial was erected on the Angel Hill in Bury. It was in the form of a Celtic Cross and was unveiled by General Lord Horn, and dedicated by the Bishop in October in a ceremony attended by several thousand people.
The first ever Labour Councillor was elected at Bury, when Councillor Tom Porter was elected. He was a railway worker and became an Alderman in 1936. In all he would serve 30 years on the council.
Hardwick Hall and estate had been in the Cullum family since 1656. Thomas Gery Cullum, the 8th and last baronet died in 1855, and the family wills required the Hall to pass to male relatives only. The last baronet had a daughter who had a grandson called George who would be the final holder of the estate. George was unmarried and had no close male relatives. Thus, when as the last squire of Hardwick, Mr George Gery Milner-Gibson Cullum, died in 1921, he had no heir who could inherit the estate under the terms of the family trust. Hardwick Hall was therefore demolished. The family collection of books and art-objects and paintings was bequeathed to the town of Bury. It was to become housed at the School of Art in the Traverse, in two years time, following probate. The cleared site of the great Hall, with its overgrown gardens, became the public open space now called Hardwick Heath.
Bury's Open Air Swimming Pool was built off Prospect Row, and behind Kings Road. It would continue in use until 1975, and included slipper baths, so that members of the public could also get a hot bath and the use of soap and towel for a small fee. The pool closed in Winter, but hot baths were still available on Saturdays and Sundays.
Haverhill's first ten council houses were built in Wratting Road by the Haverhill Urban District Council.
In December 1921, the 5th Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment Territorials was disembodied. War trophies were handed to the 4th Battalion, and the colours were laid up in St Mary's Church in Bury. After 62 years of service the new scheme for Territorial Forces had disbanded them. The colours joined those of the 7th, 8th, 9th, 12th, and 1st Garrison Battalions. |
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| Also in December 1921 Sybil Andrews held her first public exhibition of watercolours and pastels, together with Cyril Power. Their work was reviewed in the Bury Post as of the "modern school of painting", and "revolutionary and difficult for the lay mind to appreciate." Nevertheless, the critic went on to praise their approach, but it shows that Sybil Andrews was thought radically different at the time from an established traditional stylist like Rose Mead. | | 1922 | In 1922, Sybil Andrews moved to Woolpit, and there experienced the lives of agricultural workers which would be remebered in her later work, long after leaving Suffolk. She enrolled in Heatherley's School of Fine Art in London, and soon moved to near Russell Square. In London she learnt about woodblock printing, and her aim became to eliminate all unnecessary detail from her work. She would live and work in London until the war, occasionally returning to Bury to visit relatives.
Because land values in the Breckland had sunk very low after the First World War, the forestry commission was able to buy up large estates very cheaply. The planting of the Thetford Forest was begun, and would be largely complete by 1939. Four large labour camps would be set up in the Breckland through the Depression to take unemployed men largely from North East England. In the process one of the most distinctive landscapes in England was destroyed, bought up for a few shillings an acre.
The Grammar School at Bury became a Direct Grant School.
The Great Eastern Railway Company became part of the London and North Eastern Railway, the LNER. | | 1923 | The Guildhall Feoffment Trust sold off Perry's Barn Farm.
The first petrol pumps came to Bury when they were installed on the pavement at Burrell's garage in Mustow Street.
George Gery Milner Cullum of Hardwick House, had died in 1921 and left many of his collections to the town of Bury. His books and some of his paintings were housed in the old School of Art building. It was called the Cullum Reference Library, and would serve as a town library until Local Government reorganisation in 1974. Control then passed to Suffolk County Council, who moved it out in 1983.
Brewing ceased in Haverhill late in 1923 when Greene King shut down their Haverhill operations. A sharp recession had led to a fall in sales and the needs of Haverhill could be met by lorry from Bury. Some of the workforce moved to the Westgate Street premises of Greene King in Bury St Edmunds, travelling up to 40 miles a day. |
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| 1924 | The Bury Sugar Beet factory was built by a Hungarian company with Government subsidy and the support of local farmers. By 1925 some 5,000 acres were cropped in the area, for processing at Bury. Sugar was a vital preservative, and it was thought strategically important to provide home grown supplies.
The Central Cinema opened in Hatter Street in Bury
The Bury 18 hole golf course was opened for play in October 1924.
In St Andrews Street, Bury, the family house called St Andrews Castle, was turned into a Convent School by the Sisters of St Louis.
Haverhill South railway station in Colne Valley Road was closed to passengers following the LNER take over. However, the goods service remained until 1961. | | 1925 | The site of the Half Moon pub in the Butter Market at Bury had been a bombsite since 1915, and was used to provide the Playhouse Cinema and Theatre. It opened in 1925 with seats for 700 people.
With three cinemas attracting all the audiences, the Theatre Royal in Bury closed its doors.
Marlow's Timber Merchants took over large three storey mock Tudor premises in Churchgate Street where they traded until 1975.
The Suffolk Aero-Club was formed. | | 1926 | The UK experienced a General Strike from May 3rd in support of a miners strike against cuts in their pay. In Bury the Post Office cut down to one delivery a day. The railway stopped running. The Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies met in the Guildhall. A large orderly meeting was organised by striking railwaymen on 11th May on the Cornhill. However, on May 12th the General Strike was called off, leaving the miners to fight on alone.
There was a new OS map produced on the very detailed 1:2500 scale. By this time the roads called Norfolk Road, Northgate Avenue, and Avenue Approach were completely aligned with today's layout, having passed through a long phase of uncertain developments. Northgate Avenue had been called Norfolk Road for at least the final quarter of the 19th century. |
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In Bury, Mustow Street was widened and a row of old houses was demolished in the process. This gave room for two way traffic, as well as a pavement along the Abbey wall.
The Empire Cinema burnt down, but by now the Playhouse Cinema had opened in the Buttermarket, and the Central had opened in Hatter Street. | | 1927 | The First Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment returned to England in 1927 where it marched throughout Suffolk on a recruiting campaign. Parades were held in Ipswich, Stowmarket, Bury and Sudbury. |
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Councillor Mrs Eva Pauline Greene was elected to be the first woman Mayor of the Borough of Bury St Edmunds. She had been an elected Councillor since 1921.
Council housing was not a very large enterprise before this date. The Haverhill UDC owned just 10 properties, built in Wratting Road, but new housing was now planned.
Bury had built some at Grove Park, but in 1927, started work on the Perry Barn Estate. The Priors Inn was built in 1933, and the area became called the Priors Estate.
The old engineering firm of Robert Boby, established in the St Andrews Street works in 1856, was taken over by Vickers in 1927. | | 1929 | The General Election of 1929 was the first election in which all men and all women over the age of 21 could vote on an equal footing. In Bury for the first time a Labour candidate was fielded, but W E Guinness retained his seat for the Conservative Party. The Liberal came second and the Labour candidate got only 8% of the votes cast. Nationally, however, the Labour Party defeated the Conservative Party in the General Election, and Winston Churchill lost his job as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
This was the year of the Wall Street Crash, which took place on October 24th 1929. Stock markets would continue to fall until 1932.
The Local Government Act of 1929 finally abolished the poor law unions. The workhouses and poor relief duties were handed to the County Councils. The Thingoe Union Workhouse in Hospital Road became called the Public Assistance Institution. County Councils were also made responsible for all roads in rural areas. County Councils expanded in response to this and their budgets grew in proportion. District Council boundaries were also to be reviewed.
A momentous change came to Bury cinema when The Playhouse converted to talking pictures. Because the old silent movies were still popular, with their musical accompaniments, the Central carried on as it was for another year. Then, it too converted to sound.
By 1929 Woolworths had opened their bazaar on the Cornhill. They replaced the shop of Charles Best, the drapers.
On the Angel Hill in Bury, a large private house in Queen Anne style was destroyed by fire in September. This site would later hold the Borough Offices.
The Lark navigation had by now become disused. |
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| 1930 | Ipswich Airfield opened.
On 1st April the Guildhall Feoffment Schools were finally taken over by the local education authority.
Bury Borough Council opened a public library for the town, apparently using books hired from the County library. It was located in the Old School of Art building in the Traverse. It joined the Cullum Bequest of books which had been there since 1921. | | 1931 | Since 1879 there had been a prolonged agricultural depression with only a few good years from 1914 to 1921, caused by the demands of war and recovery. Not only that, but the Wall Street Crash had brought a world wide recession in its wake. Germany was particularly badly hit, with dramatic rates of inflation and unemployment. Adolf Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party gained support as society crumbled. In Ocyober, a Conservative dominated national government was elected, led by Ramsay MacDonald.
Most rural parishes lost 30% to 40% of their inhabitants over this period in Suffolk. Suffolk's total population rose by 8 1/2 % to 402,000 from 1900 to 1939 but this masked the rural decline, and the increase in the towns. The resort and port of Felixstowe grew from 2,700 to 12,000 from 1901 to 1931. Lowestoft grew 40% to 42,000 and Ipswich grew 30% to 87,500.
Land values and land rents fell under the impact of cheaper foreign food imports. Only new ideas like growing sugar beet, or fruit and roses at Wickhambrook, or Lucerne at Elveden or pigs and poultry stopped the farming industry from a total collapse.
In May, the Borough of Bury St Edmunds opened its Free Library in the Athenaeum. | | 1932 | The Bury and Norwich Post newspaper was absorbed into the Bury Free Press in January.
In August, the Boy's Guildhall Feoffment School re-opened following alterations by the local council under its new arrangements.
The Telephone Exchange was built in Bury, in Whiting Street, and opened in September.
Marks and Spencers arrived when they opened their first bazaar on the Buttermarket in Bury. Later the building would be enlarged sideways and upwards several times.
From 1929 to 1932 the Wall Street Stock Market lost 89% of its value, and the whole world was now in depression.
| | 1933 | In January, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in Germany. In October Germany withdrew from the League of Nations, and demanded equality with those nations not subject to the Treaty of Versailles.
In November, Greene King opened the Priors Inn on the Perry Barn Estate in Bury, as it was called then, to serve the expanding housing in this area. The use of the name Priors derived from Priors Lane which had since monastic times linked the town to the Prior's Farm at roughly this spot.
At the Athenaeum the old subscription lending library was sold off. The building and its facilities were ageing and income from users was falling. |
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Michaelmas by Sybil Andrews
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Henry Andrews was appointed curator of Moyses Hall Museum, a post he would hold until 1939. Henry was the youngest brother of Sybil Andrews, by now an artist specialising in lino cut and block printing in London. Sybil would visit him in Bury, and occasionally sketch in and around the museum. She retained a deep interest in the history and life of Bury, having started work on her great Banner of St Edmund in 1930. It would become a masterpiece of embroidery, but was not completed until 1975.
Mrs Eva Wollaston Greene had been the first woman to serve as a councillor on the borough and in 1927 was its first woman mayor, although her name is recorded as Eva Paulina Greene in official style. She was mayor again in 1931. Her husband John Greene had been a founder member of the Greene and Greene firm of solicitors in the town, and had been a keen collector of prints of the borough. He had died in 1925. In 1933 Mrs Greene presented the Greene collection of mainly 18th century prints to the Borough Council. A special room was prepared to display them in the School of Art, and was opened in 1934.
Gerald Oakley, the sixth Earl of Cadogan, died in October and was buried in the family vault on the Culford Estate. The estate was worth £2 million, but its future was now in doubt.
Also in October, the new Gas Holder was brought into service. The Bury Gas Works was squeezed into the site at the foot of St Andrews Street North, round to Tayfen Road. There were three gas holders here. The new one had to be built across the road, and was of larger capacity and used the new waterless technology. | | 1934 | In February, the YWCA set up its Bury Headquarters in the Abbey Ruins West Front. The local branch had just been inaugurated the previous November.
In June, the news from Germany was of the Night of the Long Knives, when Hitler's rivals and opponents were eliminated. In August he is declared Der Fuhrer, and takes powers as a virtual Dictator.
During September 1934 the huge Culford Estate of the Cadogan family was broken up and sold off, over a five day period. Culford Hall and its park would go, along with 12 farms, and the entire villages of Culford, Culford Heath, Ingham, West Stow, and Wordwell. Along with West Stow Hall and stud the whole lot covered 10,739 acres. By the end of 1934, about 56% of the estate had passed into the hands of the Forestry Commission. Not all of the estate was sold at the various auctions during 1934, but already a host of new owners had brought great changes to the local people. Many families had to move away to seek other work, or because of the general uncertainty.
A further 2,312 acres of Breckland came up for sale when the Lackford Manor Estate was sold off in August, 1934.
The West Suffolk Review Order of 1934 moved part of Fornham All Saints and Westley into Bury St Edmunds effective from 1935. The Mildenhall Road Estate, Howard Estate and Westley Estates, as well as the Western Way industrial estate, were eventually to be built in this additional area, but at the time it only added about 200 people to Bury. Thingoe RDC was also enlarged to take in those twelve parishes of the Brandon Rural District Council which were in West Suffolk. Thingoe RDC now had 58 parishes, and covered 167 square miles.
In Castle Road, a new estate of 26 houses was completed in June.
In October, the Bury Corporation opened its Electricity Showrooms on the cornhill. The council had generated all the electricity in the town since 1900, at its Prospect Row Works.
The Bury Town Council also purchased the site in Newmarket Road for use as an airport.
The Methodists had their final service in their Northgate Street Church in August. |
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In the School of Art at Bury, the Print Room was opened to display the Greene collection of 18th century prints donated to the Borough in 1933.
Rose Mead, the prominent local artist, also donated one of her best pieces to the Borough council in January 1934. It is today on display as part of the Rose Mead collection in the Manor House Museum. It was called Moyses Hall and the Buttermarket, and was painted in 1927. Rose Mead always encouraged local artists, especially young women who she encouraged also to take up independent careers.
It was 1934 in which a major expansion of the role and size of the Royal Air Force was begun. In that year the whole of East Anglia had only four active military airfields, but Mildenhall was the first of many more.
RAF Mildenhall, or Beck Row airfield, as it was first known, opened in 1934 and was immediately important as part of the Mildenhall to Melbourne Air Race won by the de Havilland Comet. This was called the Macrobertson Race and had 64 entries, and even Amy Johnson attended. The first squadrons (99 and 149) at Mildenhall flew Heyford bombers.
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| 1935 | Bury's guide book for 1935 was published jointly with the Chamber of Commerce, and supported by advertising. It contained the usual type of historical introduction, with a gazeteer of interesting buildings, and included facts and figures about the town at the time. The corporation had The Mayor, six aldermen and 18 councillors. It boasted of the only 18 hole golf course in West Suffolk, 6000 yards long and Bogey was 74. Flempton and Worlington both had 9 hole courses at the time. The corporation swimming bath was on the Playfield. The Suffolk Hunt rode out on Tuesdays and Saturdays and alternate Thursdays after Christmas. Moyses Hall museum had free entry except on Wednesdays, when it cost 3d admission. The Cullum reference library was in the School of Art, and above it was the the Print Room with the John Greene Collection of prints of old Bury. Electricity was supplied by the corporation at "moderate rates". The water supply was also a municipal undertaking: coming from wells sunk in the chalk, and "is of a high degree of purity." Gas was also available from the Bury St Edmund's Gas Company, a private undertaking. They supplied tar for roads and paths, sulphate of ammonia and coke, as well as gas from the works at Tayfen Road. The guide book also boasted of an Aerodrome. "A site, approved by the Air Ministry, comprising 96 acres, and adjoining Newmarket Road, has recently been purchased for the purpose of a Municipal Aerodrome, and facilities for landing are already available." Thursday at 1pm was early closing day. Population at July 1934 was estimated at 16,810, but 200 were added by the boundary changes which took effect in 1935. The railway had three routes to London, via Sudbury or Cambridge or Haughley, at 33/- first class to 19/10 third class.
The Athenaeum and its subscribers were falling deeper into debt, and could not continue any longer. Thus in January, the Bury Athenaeum Club was dissolved. It was decided that the council had to step in. The Bury St Edmunds Corporation acquired the Athenaeum for £2,000. At some point the Athenauem club was revived and the Reading Room and Billiard Room was leased back to the old Literary Institute, founded originally in 1853, which now called itself the Athenaeum Club.
Today the Mildenhall Air Show is internationally known, but what is less well known is that important airshows have been staged at Mildenhall since before the Second World War. In 1935 it was the Silver Jubilee of King George V and Queen Mary. As part of the commemorations, the Silver Jubilee Air Review was held at Mildenhall in July 1935 in the presence of King George V, with over 350 aircraft on show. It was a spectacular event for its day.
Culford Hall and park was still up for sale and in April 1935 they were bought by the Trustees of the East Anglian Methodist Boys School of Bury St Edmunds. By September the Hall was adapted into a school and accomodation for 200 boarders, and 150 day boys. The Methodist Scool now moved in. The village was no longer run by the family of the estate, and the old community only continued where there was a switch to forestry at West Stow and Wordwell.
Planting of massed conifirs began on the King's Forest but to alleviate the landscape, the Icknield Way was to be lined with beeches.
In 1935 excavations began on a Roman Villa situated at Stanton Chare or Stanton Chair, as it is spelled today. The work was undertaken by the Ipswich Museum, led by Guy Maynard, its curator since 1920. He was a very experienced excavator, born in 1877, who had also been Curator of Saffron Walden Museum from 1904 to 1920. In 1935, Guy Maynard, together with J Reid Moir, saw their Prehistoric Society of East Anglia become the nationwide Prehistoric Society. Founded in Ipswich in 1908, these two men had built up the regional society into this important national body over the years since about 1921. Ironically, following this major change, control of the Society was gradually taken over by men like Charles Phillips and Stuart Piggott, of Cambridge University.
In about 1935 Maynard was also responsible for taking on the man who was to become the finder of the Sutton Hoo ship burial. This was Basil Brown, who was the Ipswich Museum's first officially retained archaelogical excavator. Basil Brown was born near Ipswich in 1888, but had set up a smallholding at Rickinghall, where he lived with his wife May in the sort of tough rural living conditions that were normal all over Suffolk at this time. Basil was Suffolk through and through, but like many small farmers at the time, the enterprise failed to prosper. Brown, however, was a curious and resourceful man. He had an interest in astronomy, and like many others, investigated spiritualism. In the 1930's he began his lifetime passion for archaeology. Maynard employed him for his skill and perseverance, and supported and encouraged him as much as he could.
The dig at Stanton would go on across the period from 1935 to 1939, but other digs were run at the same time. Basil Brown excavated several pottery kilns after 1935, notably that at Wattisfield.
At the foot of Abbeygate Street the well known road sign, now called the Pillar of Salt, was installed on Angel Hill. The growth of traffic made a sign essential, but the site was of prime importance in the town. The Ministry of Transport required the letters to be 5 inches high and a design was based on advice from Basil Oliver.
To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Suffolk Regiment, the North Chapel of St Mary's church in Bury was converted into the Suffolk Chapel.
The Minister of Transport appointed the Mcgowan Committee to report on recommendations to improve the state of electricity supply in the UK. It was believed that the multitude of small local suppliers, of which the Bury Corporation Undertaking was a prime example, should be amalgamated into area groupings to maximise efficiency, and improve the uniformity and consistency of supply. Many small suppliers resisted this idea, but at Bury, the idea was taken seriously, and would lead to a sell off in 1938.
In Bury, the Borough Treasurer had been Mr J H Wakefield, since December 1889, a remarkable 46 year tenure. He was succeeded in May 1935 by Mr R J Pitcher who in 1935/36 converted the Borough's accounts from Receipts and Payments to Income and Expenditure in line with best practice, as laid down by the The Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants. Central Government did not adopt this practice until the year 2001.
In 1933, Mary D Lobel was a research student at Girton College, Cambridge. Using documents from Bury Borough, Cambridge University and national sources, her thesis was on the government and development of Bury as a monastic town, in medieval times. This was published by Oxford University Press as the book called "The Borough of Bury St Edmund's", by M D Lobel, in 1935. Unlike Yates in 1804, she wanted to discuss the development of the town's government, rather than the abbey's own story.
Sir Ninian Comper completed his refurbishment of the Suffolk Regimental Chapel in St Mary's Church at Bury.
In November, the General Election resulted in a National Government led by Stanley Baldwin. | | 1936 | In March, Germany sent troops into the Rhineland, a demilitarised zone.
The Borough Education Committee had spent some years planning the reorganisation of elementary schooling in Bury. The old Risbygate Schools were to be replaced by new schools in Grove Road. These were the St Edmundsbury School for younger children and The Silver Jubilee Schools for Boys and Girls who did not go to the Grammar School. In Bury in March, the Siver Jubilee School was opened in Grove Road, Bury, by the Minister of Education.
The Feoffment Poor Girls School was moved to Bridewell Lane in Bury to join the Poor Boys School. The Parish Schools of St Mary's and St James were replaced by the St Edmundsbury School.
The St James National Schools were closed in 1937, and demolished, having stood since 1846. The site was used to provide School Lane, the access into the Cattle Market, and the Risbygate Street Carpark, the first purpose built parking place for motor vehicles in the town.
In July, work was finished to the Parish Church of St James to help its conversion into the Cathedral Church of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. The Bishop still lived in Ipswich, but his cathedral was in Bury. The Diocese had been set up on this basis in 1914.
July also saw the outbreak of Civil War in Spain.
Edward VIII was crowned King but abdicated in December in order to marry Mrs Simpson. He was succeeded by King George VI.
The Public Health Act of 1936 gave every district council a duty to provide free, weekly household refuse collections in their areas. It also required them to provide mortuary and post-mortem facilities.
New ideas were incorporated into the Abbey Gardens when the concentric circle beds were replaced with 64 island beds.
At Stanton Chare Farm Basil Brown had completed the first major stage of excavations of a Roman Villa for the Ipswich Museum. This sort of work would lead him to be selected to excavate at Sutton Hoo in 1939. | | 1937 | In July the enormous Odeon Cinema was opened in Brentgovel Street in Bury with seats for 1289 people. It was built in a very modern style, with all the latest technology at the time. It lasted until 1982, when it closed down, and was finally demolished in 1983.
The new Borough Offices were completed on Angel Hill, designed by the local firm of architects of Mitchell and Oliver, and opened on April 9th. Italian craftsmen were imported to lay the marble staircase, and were boarded with local families. The council offices in the Town Hall on the Buttermarket were moved here, leaving the Adam building now to be called the Old Town Hall. By the 1990's it was generally called the Market Cross building. The new Borough Offices had a fine Committee Room, but meetings of the full Council continued to be held at the Guildhall.
The Borough Lending Library was established in the same building as the Cullum Reference Library, in the old School of Art, and would remain a public library until 1983. |
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Following the publication of a Government White Paper on the electricity industry, it became clear that the government was determined that smaller electricity suppliers should be joined with bigger, and therefore of assumed higher efficiency, suppliers. Bury Corporation had by now decided to sell its elecricity undertaking off Prospect Row, to the East Anglian Supply Company. The electricity showroom on the Cornhill was retained in ownership, but rented to the Supply Company. The transfer took place on 31st December at a price of £100,000. Most of this money went to repay the loan debt on the elecricity undertaking, but, even so, the Council got better terms than other councils like Ipswich were to receive upon nationalisation in 1948.
With the disposal of its electricity works, the Borough Council of Bury voluntarily gave up one of its wide ranging powers, the extent of which seem inconceivable to us in the year 2001, as we are used to a Borough Council with a much more limited set of responsibilities. In 1937, the Borough council served a population of about 17,000 people, and as well as the services which we would expect today, they also provided Sewers and Sewage Disposal, Refuse Disposal, Infectious Diseases Hospital, a Small Pox Hospital, Maternity and Child Welfare, a Medical Officer of Health, Slipper Baths, Cow Shed Inspections, Pauper Lunacy, Animal Diseases, Roads and Highways, Traffic Control, A Fire Brigade, Police Services, Quarter Sessions, Petty Sessions and a Coroner's Court, Regulated Explosives, a Civil Airport, and in 1937, began to be involved in Air Raid Precautions. It also provided all the water supply for the town, from its borehole in Kings Road, and was the Local Education Authority for the town.
In June, the Cloister Gardens were opened in the Park in Bury.
The only pre-war fighter station built in the RAF's expansion period after 1934 was Debden in 1937. Along with Duxford, which dated from post World War I, these shorter grass fields could take Spitfires and Hurricanes. RAF Honington was opened as a bomber station. RAF Honington had been started in 1935 and opened in 1937 in 3 Group with 77 Squadron's Audaxes and Wellesleys and 102 Squadron's Heyfords.
At Woodbridge, Mrs Pretty, the owner of an estate overlooking the River Deben, had finally decided to get something done about investigating a series of mounds or tumuli a short distance from her home. She had been married to Colonel Frank Pretty of the Suffolk Regiment, but he had died in 1934. Colonel Pretty was connected to the Ipswich Drapery firm of Footman and Prettys. At the Woodbridge Flower Show, she asked Vincent Redstone, another Woodbridge inhabitant, for advice on how to proceed. Redstone was himself a widely known historian, and he wrote to Guy Maynard of the Ipswich Museum, asking him to come to view the mounds. It was agreed that the Museum would run the excavation, and that it would take place when Mrs Pretty could release two of her estate workers to help with the heavy digging. This would be early in 1938.
The Spanish Civil War was joined by German volunteers who supported General Franco's fascist forces. Hitler ran massive and dramatic rallies in Germany. At the coronation of King George VI the British Empire showed that it could produce parades of glory and power that could still match the displays in Germany. Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister in May, following the resignation of Stanley Baldwin.
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| 1938 | In the Bury Borough Council's fine new Offices on Angel Hill, a strongroom was finished to become the Borough's Muniments Room. Some records were transferred here from the Guildhall, where they had been kept in the room above the Porch, called the Evidence Room. A professional archivist was appointed to maintain the archives. She was Miss L J Redstone, and she published several papers using these records.
By 1934 most of the buildings and equipment of the brewers Greene King were up to 100 years old. The brewhouse was in a dangerous state and the site was congested. It might have been the time to move to new premises, but in the end only the Brewhouse was attended to. So Greene King built a new brewhouse in Westgate Street. It began production in the first days of 1939.
In 1938, the Hare and Hounds pub in Risbygate Street was demolished. It had become rather decrepit. The school on the adjacent site also closed and this became the first site in Bury to be specifically levelled and allocated as a car park, and it remains so in 2002. Places like the Angel Hill and Buttermarket were, of course, already designated as parking places, but these were just convenient uses of existing spaces. The Risbygate Carpark was a specific response to the rise of the motor car, and the need for somewhere to park it. Meanwhile, pub stabling was going out of use.
The West Suffolk Aero-Club built Westley Airfield with two small hangars as home for their two Taylorcraft Plus C monoplanes. It was too small to be taken over by the RAF Volunteer Reserve, so private flying was allowed until the war when it closed. During the war, it was used on and off by the military until 1944.
RAF Stradishall was opened in February 1938 as part of 3 Group. It would be an active station for over 30 years. It was first occupied by 9 Squadron with Heyfords and 148 Squadron with Wellesleys, although the latter were soon replaced by Heyfords and Ansons. The base soon formed links with Haverhill by helping set up the Haverhill and Kedington Air Scouts. |
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Air Raid Precautions 1938
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War seemed to move even closer when Germany, now called the Third Reich, annexed Austria in March in what was termed the Anschluss. In the same month, the Home Office issued a booklet called "The Protection of Your Home against Air Raids", issued at first only to officials who may need to take emergency action, such as Police, Local Government Officers and Special Constables.
In September 1938 the Munich crisis had Stradishall on full alert and its tentative target, in case of war, was Berlin.
However, the government's policy was to appease Germany by allowing it to violate some of the Versailles Treaty. In September, Britain and Germany signed the Munich Agreement promising that the two countries would never fight each other again. Hitler was allowed to occupy the Sudetanland region of Czechoslovakia. Neville Chamberlain returned to announce, "I believe it is peace in our time." However, the public were still encouraged to prepare for war.
The accounts of the Bury Borough Council for 1938/39 show that £518 was spent in that year on "Air Raid Precautions", over a period from 6 to 18 months before war was declared. This money was reimbursed by West Suffolk County Council, who were responsible for such preparations. The largest sum went on recruitment and training of personnel, but there was also the distribution of respirators, Black out testing, decontamination services, Air raid wardens and casualty services, as well as leaflets, information, instruction and advice to the public. Another £42 was spent on "Evacuation Expenses", met from a Ministry of Health direct grant.
At Haverhill, air raid precautions volunteers met in the Council School (at Cangle Junction), and their training was stepped up after the September Munich crisis. Shelter trenches were dug in the Recreation Ground.
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At Sutton Hoo, across the river from Woodbridge, Mrs Pretty decided that the mounds on her property should now be excavated, and asked Guy Maynard at Ipswich Museum to make arrangements. Maynard decided to supervise the work himself, and to transfer Basil Brown from the Roman Villa at Stanton Chair to Sutton Hoo. Mrs Pretty would supply labourers, and would herself employ Basil Brown at his usual rate at the time of £1 12s 6d a week. So, Basil Brown was employed for the dig and arrived on June 20th at Sutton Hoo.
Basil suggested to Mrs Pretty that it would be better to start with a smaller mound in order to get experience of the conditions, and the best way to proceed. In August, work had to cease as Mrs Pretty was going away. In 1938, three mounds were excavated, enough to prove that this was a high status burial ground of the 7th century. He found evidence of a boat burial, but the graves had been ransacked in the long distant past. Further work was planned for the following year, and Basil returned to the Stanton Chair Roman Villa on August 10th. | | 1939 | In February, there was widespread floods in Bury. The markets were also reorganised in the same month within the town.
A large and attractive drinking fountain set outside the Nutshell in the Traverse was judged to impede the traffic and so was removed. It now stands in the Abbey Gardens, used as a planter next to the Bowling Green.
The Plymouth Brethren moved out of town to a new chapel in West Road, Bury.
In March, Germany ignored the terms of the Munich Agreement and occupied the whole of Czechoslovakia.
The site that we now know as Blenheim Camp was built early in 1939 in Out Risbygate, Bury St Edmunds, and was originally known as West Lines. It was built for training the Militia who were called up for a six month spell, but war broke out before the six months were up. West Lines was expanded to give basic training to new recruits throughout the war. |
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At Sutton Hoo, overlooking the River Deben and the town of Woodbridge, Mrs Pretty owned an estate with a collection of interesting mounds or tumuli. She had asked the Ipswich Museum to oversee their excavation. Basil Brown had been assigned to the task, and would now follow up his work from the previous year.
Basil Brown returned to Sutton Hoo on the 8th of May 1939, and Mrs Pretty asked him to now dig the largest mound, despite obvious signs of past disturbance. By June he had uncovered a ship burial of over 50 feet long, and Guy Maynard of the Ipswich Museum decided that he should seek help and guidance from the British Museum. It was now agreed that the find was of national importance. By 25th June the government Office of Works had assigned Charles Phillips of Cambridge University to supervise the further excavation. Phillips could not become available until July, and Mrs Pretty was reluctant to wait, and instructed Basil Brown to continue digging. By June 28th he had found the other end of a ship some 83 feet long and 16 feet at its widest. On 10th July the work was taken over by the Office of Works, under Charles Phillips, with support from the British Museum. Basil Brown was now reporting to Phillips, as well as Mrs Pretty, who was in effect his employer on this job. Guy Maynard and the Ipswich Museum would from now on feel increasingly excluded from what they regarded as a Suffolk enterprise. Phillips also brought in Stuart and Peggy Piggott as excavators on 19th July. By the 21st, the first gold objects were found by Peggy Piggott. The gold buckle, the purse and the 37 gold coins, were found on the 22nd July. Secrecy was now essential to avoid treasure hunters, and the objects were whisked off to the British Museum. It was now known that the site was Anglo-Saxon, and not Viking, as some had supposed. The great silver dish from the Byzantine Empire was located on 26th July. On 28th July, the full story was broken by the Daily Herald, so the East Anglian Daily Times had to follow suit the next day, having been holding back at the request of Ipswich Museum. Press now besieged anyone connected to the site. It had become a national sensation. By 31st July, the last of the treasure had been removed and shipped to the British Museum.
On 14th August, a Treasure Trove Inquest was held in Sutton Village Hall, with a jury of 14 local men. The jury found that the owner was Mrs Pretty, and the objects were not Treasure Trove, as they had not been buried for concealment, with the object of later recovery. By the end of the month, Mrs Pretty had donated the entire treasure collection to the British Museum, and with war imminent the whole lot was stored in a disused tunnel of the underground, safe from enemy bombs. By the time war was declared a fabulous hoarde of golden treasure and other royal grave goods had been found, and hidden again. These discoveries would transform the modern view of the Anglo Saxons, their sophistication and international connections.
After Austria and Czechoslovakia had been annexed by Germany, the new Reich was feeling strong and confident. The 1918 Treaty of Versailles was effectively abolished. In Germany the Jews had been viciously suppressed. In Russia Stalinist purges had killed 700,000 people. Despite their opposite political systems, in August 1939 the Germans agreed a non-aggression pact with Russia.
Secretly Germany and Russia agreed to divide up Eastern Europe and the pact gave Hitler the confidence to invade Poland. Britain had warned Hitler that it could not accept this and after its ultimatum was ignored the British Empire declared war on Germany on September 3rd 1939. Winston Churchill was made First Lord of the Admiralty.
As war was declared Basil Brown filled in the excavation at Sutton Hoo, covering it in bracken and hessian. By mid September he was sent back to the dig at Stanton Chair. He would continue to make valuable contributions to Suffolk Archaeology, and died in 1977, aged 89, at Rickinghall.
Within a week of the declaration of war, a British Expeditionary Force were crossing the Channel. Troops landed at Cherbourg, to be as far from the enemy's expected air attacks as possible. They then had to move to the Belgian frontier, 250 miles away. Once at their agreed positions, they dug in. Or rather, they built concrete pill boxes, dug anti-tank trenches, and laid wire.
The First Battalion of the Suffolks was sent to France with the 3rd Division of the British Expeditionary Force and would fight in France and Belgium in 1940 and be evacuated from Dunkirk.
By the end of the year 1939, a deep defence line was established in France by the allies.
When the Second World War started in September 1939, there were only 15 active military airfields (and five satellites) in East Anglia. Wellington bombers even took over the Rowley Mile end of Newmarket Heath. By May 1945 there were to be 107 airfields in operation in the area.
By 1939 Wellington bombers had been delivered to Beck Row, or Mildenhall, as we now call the base, and 99 Squadron was then re-stationed at Newmarket Heath. 149 Squadron remained at Mildenhall flying its first raid in Wellingtons in September 1939 against the German fleet near the Kiel Canal.
Number 75 Squadron came to RAF Honington in 1938 with Harrows and converted to Wellingtons but moved to Stradishall in July 1939. It was replaced by Number 9 Squadron who stayed at Honington until September 1942 flying Wellingtons. Four of these were lost in the attack on the German fleet of 18th December 1939.
Westley Airfield was taken out of civilian control by the Army Co-Operative Command. They used small planes to patrol the east coast.
At home the first few months were called the phoney war and the expected blitzkrieg did not arrive. However, petrol rationing was immediately brought in during September. Hundreds of thousands of children were evacuated to the country although many returned to the cities when little seemed to happen. In Bury during September, some 942 evacuees arrived from London. By 13th October it was reported that only 526 remained, the rest going back to London. In the later years of the war other evacuees would return to Bury.
The civilian population also mobilised for war. Factories converted to war work, and women joined the workforce to replace the men, as many had done in the First World War. Sybil Andrews, the artist, went to work at the British Power Boat Company, echoing her war work as a welder in 1914-18. She would meet and marry Walter Morgan in 1943.
On October 19th the Athenaeum Services Club was opened in Bury to support the war effort.
In November bacon and butter went on ration.
By December the blackout was causing severe problems for road users. In that month alone about 1,100 people died in road accidents nationwide.
In 1939 the Rowley Mile Racecourse at Newmarket Heath had been taken over by Wellingtons of 99 Squadron from Mildenhall and the Grandstand was used for their accommodation. Twelve of these planes attacked the Germany fleet off Heligoland in December 1939 and six were destroyed by enemy fighter action. This action helped Bomber Command to decide against daylight attacks and so future work was done at night.
Haverhill was also considered a "safe" area for evacuees and 180 children were soon to arrive from Page Green School in Tottenham.
The old Ruffles windmill in Wratting Road was partly demolished because its distinctive circular sail was deemed to be an excellent landmark for enemy aircraft.
Other consequences of war were that civilians were often relieved of their property for war work. For example, at Clare Priory, now a private home, Lady May, a descendant of the Barnadiston line, had to leave home. The Priory was commandeered by the army for a Brigade Headquarters for the duration of the war.
The Guildhall Feoffment Trust built the Jankyn's Place Almshouses in Chalk Road, Bury St Edmunds. | | 1940 | In January, as a special war time measure, the opening of cinemas on a Sunday was sanctioned in Bury for the first time.
In the same month sugar, ham, cheese and meat were added to the list of rationed foods.
By the end of January, there were 222,200 British troops along the Belgian border.
The winter of 1939/40 was severe, and in Suffolk resulted in the demise of the population of Dartford Warblers. They would not return until milder winters at the extreme end of the century.
The Suffolk's 7th Battalion was converted to armour to fight in the Churchill tanks of 142 Regiment Royal Armoured Corps. They fought in the Battle for Tunis and the clearance of Tunisia, and the break through the Adolf Hitler line at Cassino in Italy. Here they fought alongside Canadian troops and wore the Canadian Maple Leaf badge.
On April 9th, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. Suddenly the phony war was over. Neville Chamberlain resigned as Prime Minister, after failing to thwart the invasion of Norway. |
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BEF surrounded 23rd May 1940
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On 10th May the Germans invaded the Netherlands and France. Winston Churchill became the Prime Minister as the Battle of Flanders now began. Although 400 concrete pill boxes had been built by the BEF, they were still short of ammunition, and did not have the equipment for sustained operations. Nevertheless, the BEF advanced into Belgium to a position on the Dutch border. The Dutch had to surrender on 15th May. The Germans were encircling the French Army and the BEF from the south east. Allied forces mounted some counter attacks, and fought many delaying actions. By 21st May Boulogne came under attack, and had to be evacuated on May 25th. Calais was lost on 27th May, but by now a perimeter had been established around Dunkirk. The same day, the Belgians ceased hostilities. The BEF had been on half rations since May 23rd, and ammunition was short. The Dunkirk perimeter was pulled back again, and by 30th May the whole of the remaining BEF had fought themselves back to within it. The famous evacuation of Dunkirk took place between 31st May and 3rd June. The docks were destroyed, and so rescue could only come on the beaches. Organised by Dover Command, an armada of small ships and civilian boats was pressed into service, manned by their civilian volunteer owners. Some 330,000 men were saved by the navy and 700 little ships. Over 200 boats were lost. About 112,000 of the troops evacuated were French. According to Winston Churchill, "This was their finest hour."
In May 1940, a Home Defence Executive was set up to prepare for a possible German invasion. By June a series of defence lines had been mapped out for fortification. The main "stop-line" was the General Headquarters Line, which ran in the East from the Thames estuary via Cambridge and York to Edinburgh. Another Defence First Line ran along the River Stour from Colchester to Sudbury, Lavenham to Bury St Edmunds and along the River Lark valley to Mildenhall and Littleport, where it joined the GHQ Line. This line explains the string of pill-boxes, dragon's teeth, anti-tank barriers and Spigot Mortar mountings which run through our area. These were all built by local building contractors through the second half of 1940 .
Debden, in Essex, had been an RAF station since 1935 and flew Hurricanes and Blenheims in the 1940 Battle of Britain, when it was also bombed by the Luftwaffe. Castle Camps was opened as a satellite fighter station in June/July 1940. The first major new wartime RAF station was Coltishall which also opened in June 1940.
In Summer 1940 the Wellingtons of RAF Number 9 Squadron, based at Honington attacked German industrial targets by night.
On the night of 18th June, Bury was bombed, but nobody was hurt. On 30th July a Junkers bomber crashed at Bury, having caught fire in mid-air.
In 1940 Basil Brown, the excavator of the royal ship at Sutton Hoo excavated two Roman pottery kilns at West Stow and again in 1947 continued there with Stanley West.
The Local Defence Volunteers were set up, only to be re-named the Home Guard within months.
Rationing was introduced, along with regulations about the black out, and a range of other restrictions.
The Blitz on London began and from September 1940 to May 1941 over two million homes were destroyed. During this period the aerial Battle of Britain was won and any invasion of England was called off. The first home to be bombed in Bury was on September 22nd, 1940. A raider also strafed the area around the railway station, and the Spread Eagle. Miraculously, nobody was killed, and this was to be an infrequent occurrence for the town.
During the Battle of Britain the East Anglia involvement was mainly the assembly of 12 Group's Big Wing assembling every day at Duxford.
During all this death the summer was glorious, the culmination of a period of warmer summers which had begun in the 1890's. Winters now began to be colder than before, and by 1950, summers would become cooler as well. | | 1941 | In January the fear of bombing reached the countryside, including Bury. Blackout precautions were tightened, and a public meeting was held to organise fire watching parties. Some 500 people volunteered to help.
The Charley Chaplin film, "The Great Dictator" was shown at the Odeon in Bury, in January 1941. A mock coffin was displayed outside and to put another nail in Hitler's Coffin, you made a donation to the Spitfire Fund.
In February, 1941, houses in Holderness Road, nearby to Bury's Sugar Beet factory, were bombed. This time, three people died and there were also other serious injuries. These were the first deaths in Bury itself arising from the aerial attacks.
In February 1941 the White Hart Hotel at Newmarket and much other Newmarket High Street property was destroyed by bombing from a Dornier.
One of the hangers at RAF Stradishall suffered enemy bomb damage in early 1941. Number 138 Squadron flew many sorties from Stradishall from November 1941 to March 1942 with Whitley bombers.
Westley Airfield was built with two small hangars in 1938 as home for the West Suffolk Aero Club with its two Taylorcraft Plus C monoplanes. It was too small to be taken over by RAF Volunteer Reserve so private flying was allowed until the war, when it closed. Because of the Gibraltar Barracks and Blenheim Camp in Bury, 241 Squadron flew Lysanders out of Westley Airfield from April to July 1941, to help the army and watch the east coast for any invaders.
In December 1940 9 Squadron had attacked Venice out of RAF Honington, and in January 1941 Turin. In March 1941 they received two Wellington II's, able to carry 4,000 lb bombs.
Wellingtons of Number 3 Group Flight arrived at Newmarket Heath RAF Station in May 1941, with Wellingtons of 75 Squadron later. In these early days the 3,000 yard grass runway was the longest in the country. Whitleys and Lysanders flew clandestine operations from here as well, but a tank carrying glider was also tested at Newmarket Heath because of the long runways.
In the Spring Hitler planned Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia with its plan for genocide in the east. Even his own soldiers wondered why they had begun to move against their Soviet allies in June. Over 3,000 tanks attacked along a 1,000 mile front, covering up to 40 miles a day. Over three million Russian soldiers were captured and within six months 600,000 of them were dead. By September they were approaching Moscow but such was the defence, the attack never breached the city.
At Westley Airfield, in July of 1941, the Army Cooperation Command felt that Lysanders were too slow and vulnerable for reconnaisance work, and acquired American Curtiss Tomahawks. Unfortunately, the runway at Westley was not long enough for these, so 241 Squadron left Bury for Snailwell.
In September many houses were damaged in Fornham Road in an air raid, but there were no casualties.
From late 1940 to 1942 149 Squadron was part of the night bomber offensive, flying out of RAF Mildenhall. In 1941 the film "Target for Tonight" was made here, and shown as a propaganda film to raise civilian morale. Stirling bombers were introduced to Mildenhall during 1941.
In 1941 157 Mosquito Squadron was formed at Debden, Essex, just south of Haverhill, and equipped at Castle Camps.
The 4th and 5th Battalions of the Suffolks had been raised as a prelude to this war and in October 1941 were assigned to the 18th Division and sent to guard Singapore. Japan entered the war and captured Hong Kong before the Suffolks reached Singapore.
On December 7th 1941, "a date which will live in infamy" the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and Honolulu in Hawaii. Next day, the Americans declared war on Japan and her allies and the war was now truly global, a "world war." | | 1942 | Lakenheath airfield was built in 1941 and in January 1942 RAF Lakenheath opened as a satellite of RAF Mildenhall flying Stirlings of 149 Squadron. By late 1942 the airfield building programme got into full swing, especially since the Americans began to arrive. In those days there was no mains water or electricity in much of the countryside and the roads were not suitable for heavy traffic, so the impact of these works and the people who subsequently used them was tremendous.
The 4th and 5th Battalions of the Suffolk Regiment arrived in Singapore on 29th January, 1942. The press liked to call it Fortress Singapore, but when the Suffolks arrived they found that it had virtually no landward defence at all. It had massive guns to defend a sea-borne attack, but not even any attempt to face a land attack.
On 11th February, the Japanese attacked Singapore through the jungle approaches. British forces could only hold out for four days. When Singapore was lost on 15th February 1942, the men of the 4th and 5th Battalions of the Suffolk Regiment, along with thousands of others were to become Prisoners of War. Memories of Changi Jail and the building of the Burma/Thailand Railway from October, 1942, under intolerable conditions remain a powerful part of local history. Many men did not survive this period of slave labour. Of the 4th Battalion, 286 men died and from the 5th 271 died in captivity.
During 1942 an Invasion Committee met in the Borough Offices on Angel Hill, at Bury. The Brewery roof had a lookout post, and an anti-tank ditch was dug around the town.
In March 1942 heavy attacks were made on Essen, Lubeck and Rostock by the RAF. 14 planes from RAF Honington joined the 1,000 bomber raids on Cologne, then Essen and Bremen in June.
The secret new plane, the Mosquito, was completing its tests at Castle Camps by 157 Squadron, and in May one crashed at Helions Bumpstead.
In April 1942 the RAF's 149 Squadron moved its bombers from RAF Mildenhall to Lakenheath and was based here for two years, later to specialise in mine-laying.
1942 became Spitfire year at Debden when the Debden Wing was formed. When 65 Squadron was replaced by 71 Eagle Squadron in April 1942 the transition to a USAAF fighter base had begun. Debden was then home to the top-scoring "Eagles" of the American 4th Fighter Group from September 1942 to July 1945.
Debden became known as The Eagles Nest because the base was home to the 4th FG, formed from the RAF's three Eagle squadrons (Number 71, 121 and 133) which were manned by American volunteer pilots before the USA officially entered the War. The 4th Fighter Group was part of the 65th Fighter Wing, and its USAAF Squadron designations became 334, 335 and 336.This made it the oldest fighter group in the Eighth Airforce. The 4th Fighter Group claimed 583 air and 469 ground enemy aircraft destroyed, the highest total of the USAAF. 241 of its own fighters were lost. The Eagles flew 36 Spitfires until April 1943, when they converted to Thunderbolts.
Also in May, the First Battalion, the Suffolk Regiment was sent to Scotland for training in combined operations.
By June the rationing was extended to even more items, and blankets and sheets were only available to newly-weds.
Also in June 1942, the inhabitants of six Breckland villages north of Brandon and Thetford in Norfolk were given a month's notice to quit by the War Department. Lord Walsingham had to leave his estate along with his tenants and by the end of July about 600 to 800 people had lost their homes. The six villages of Stanford, Tottington, West Tofts, Buckenham Tofts, Langford and Sturston were deserted along with the small farmsteads and cottages around. Since 1940 the army had used the area for manoeuvres, but now needed a live firing area for troops and air support to train. It became called the Stanford Battle Area. Lord Walsingham negotiated with the army and got the promise that everybody could return after the war. This never happened, and as recently as 1990 the area was enlarged to 27,000 acres. It is still used for army and airforce training, now known as STANTA to the military, or Stanford Training Area.
The official opening of the Y.W.C.A.'s hostel for Women's Land Army girls at Lakenheath was held on 13th. June. In fact it had been in operation for some time and was fully occupied by this time. The hostel, for 116 girls, was opened by Mrs.G.Walmsley, wife of the chairman of the West Suffolk War Agricultural Executive Committee. Mrs.Carnegie, National chairman of the Young Women's Christian Association presided over the proceedings and Lady Briscoe, West Suffolk Women's Land Army chairman was among other 'V.I.P.'s present. The Lakenheath hostel was the largest in the country with three dormitories, two sleeping 40 girls and one 36. The hostel was situated on either side of the High Street at Lakenheath. This large hostel was sited at Lakenheath because a considerable number of workers were required to assist in the reclamation of Lakenheath Fen, which had become largely derelict and subject to flooding during the pre-war 'depression' era, and bring it into arable crop cultivation to help the war effort. Some 2,100 acres of the Fen had been taken over by the West Suffolk W.A.E.C. under the Defence Regulations. Training of a more technical or managerial nature would be undertaken at Chadacre Farm Institute. The women would also be sent to work on the private farms of Chivers, Sizers and Kidners, as well as others, and occasionally went as far as Ickworth Estates or Gazely. Conditions at the Hostel were rough and ready, but frequently were preferable to the living conditions a WLA woman might find on small outlying farmsteads.
Also during 1942 the Women's Timber Corps was formed by splitting off from the WLA. There was a need for a specialist unit to work on the production of timber for uses such as pit props, construction and telegraph poles. The first national training centre for the Lumber-Jills, as they became known, was set up at Wordwell. This camp had been established in the 1930's to provide work and training for unemployed men during the Depression. Many of them had been from the North-East, but with the advent of war, the men were sent to join up. Although the camp was in the parish of Wordwell, it was usually called Culford Camp, and continued to operate throughout the war. Women from here worked in woods as far away as Martlesham and Methwold.
The first US plane landed in Britain on 1st July 1942 - a B-17. The first official wartime attack by US air personnel was carried out on 4th July using British planes. The first attack with their own planes was the 97th Bomb Group's raid on Rouen railyards on 17th August 1942.
Honington had been built as a permanent RAF station and housed transport and bomber squadrons for its first five years. In August 1942 Number 9 Squadron moved to Waddington and in September 1942 the USAAF took over Honington as a depot for major aircraft overhauls, later specialising in the B17 Flying Fortresses. Some badly damaged B17's would be re-routed straight to Honington on return from action, instead of landing at their home bases.
Until well into 1943 the American 8th Air Force was still too weak to make any significant impact but it continued to build up its resources through 1942.
Rougham airfield was built by Costain's and opened in August 1942. For six weeks in August and September 1942 the American 47th Bomb Group flew 8 A20 Bostons from Rougham. The base was empty until December 1942 when the ground crew for the 322nd Bomb Group arrived, but the planes would not arrive until March 1943.
In August 1942 the small airfield at Westley was taken over from the army by the RAF. The RAF's 652 AOP Squadron arrived with Tiger Moths and Austers and training was carried out here in 1943. Auster Squadrons used Westley for training until September 1944. Tiger Moths and Austers were also used for various small operations until June 1944.
RAF Chedburgh airfield opened as a satellite of Stradishall in September, 1942. 214 Squadron arrived in October with their Short Stirling bombers until late 1943.
Ridgewell Airfield was built near Haverhill as a satellite for Stradishall and on December 30th 1942 the newly formed 90 Squadron (RAF) flew in Stirling bombers from Bottesford. The RAF used the Stirlings for minelaying and bombing of targets such as Hamburg, Essen and Duisburg until May 1943, when 90 Squadron moved to West Wickham.
Another new airfield was completed at Rattlesden. From December 1942 to April 1943 the American 322nd Bomb Group (M) flew the medium bomber B-26 Marauder from Rattlesden, until all the Marauder groups were moved to Essex to improve their range over the continent.
There were continued restrictions of services at home and constant news of relatives killed or Missing in Action. Haverhill's Prisoners of War Week was held in December.
| | 1943 | In February, the American Red Cross Service Club was established in Bury. It was in Westgate Street, facing up Guildhall Street.
The American Eagle Squadrons at Depden flew 36 Spitfires until April 1943, when they converted to P47 Thunderbolts.
In November 1942 the airfield at Mildenhall had been changed from grass surface to concrete. In April 1943 operations resumed with Stirlings of RAF XV Squadron and 622 Squadron was formed. In December 1943 both squadrons converted to Lancasters.
The RAF had used the Stirlings based at Ridgewell for minelaying and bombing of targets such as Hamburg, Essen and Duisburg but in May 1943, the RAF 90 Squadron moved to RAF West Wickham, which was just opened. In June their targets were Krefeld, Mulheim and Wuppertal, with raids on Hamburg in July and 15 planes went on the Peenemunde raid. In August they attacked Turin twice but the station's name had caused some confusion so it was renamed RAF Wratting Common on 21st August 1943.
The opening of West Wickham freed up Ridgewell, and allowed the American 381st Bomb Group to arrive at Ridgewell in June 1943 in its B17 Flying Fortresses.
In March 1943 the Marauder bombers of the American 322nd Bomb Group had arrived at Rougham Airfield, but they moved on to Andrews Field on 13th June 1943.
On that same day, 13th June 1943, the 94th Bomb Group's B17 Flying Fortresses arrived at Rougham, returning from a raid on Kiel flown out of Earls Colne. The station was by now officially called Bury St Edmunds, but local people always called it Rougham Airfield. With the arrival of the 94th the field was extended to 50 hardstandings and dispersal areas, 3 of which were diamond shaped to give capacity for 50 aircraft. The main runway was east to west and was 2,000 yards long and 50 yards wide. A second runway was 1,400 yards from north to south, and the third was also 1,400 yards north to south east.
News was also arriving of the fate of many local men captured at the fall of Singapore. In JUly 1943, a fete was held in the Abbey Gardens at Bury in aid of Prisoners of War. Over 20,000 people attended and £2,500 was raised. Events were frequently arranged to encourage the purchase of War Bonds, or to make donations to a Spitfire Fund, or a Motor Torpedo Boat, or to provide comforts for troops on active duty.
By Summer 1943 the North African campaign was over and the American build-up in Britain was renewed. Targets were switched to the aircraft, ball bearing and oil production centres.
The 388th Bomb Group of the American 8th Airforce flew B17 Flying Fortresses out of Knettishall Heath Airfield for 2 years as part of the 3rd Air Division from 23rd June 1943 to 5th August 1945.
Great Ashfield Air Field had opened in March 1943 and became the base for the American 385th Bomb Group in June 1943.
In June the first Americans were now based at Ridgewell airfield and visits were also arranged for Bob Hope, Edward G Robinson and Glen Miller. Fruit like bananas, lemons and grapefruit were so rare, that if any did appear they could be auctioned for charity or put on display. Also in June 1943, the command of the 1st Battalion of Suffolks was taken over by Lt Colonel Dick Goodwin. They were being trained for the assault on France.
In July 1943 Castle Camps became a satellite of North Weald and the Mosquito began to be used for intruder operations, and then they developed it for bomber support operations. Mosquitos left Castle Camps in October 1943. 527 Radar Calibration Squadron replaced them until February 1944.
In December 1942 RAF Newmarket Heath had became part of 31 Base. In great secrecy a jet powered Gloster F9/40 was assembled here for flight trials, and in September 1943 more secret trials of radio and radar bombing aids were begun by the Bombing Development Unit until 1945. Also in June 1943 the Gunnery Training Flight arrived at Newmarket, and later became 1688 Bomber Defence Training Flight.
On August 17th 1943, one year after that first raid on Rouen a massive American two-pronged attack was mounted against Schweinfurt, where half of Germany's ball bearings were produced, and the Regensburg Messerschmitt factory.
It is possible to see from today's perspective that the Luftwaffe was now declining in numbers and quality whilst the vast fully mobilised and attack-free American economy was still turning out B-17s and B-24s in growing numbers.
RAF Tuddenham opened in October 1943 as part of 3 Group RAF and Number 90 Squadron started flying Stirlings in that month laying mines and special operations air drops.
In November 1943 the 447th Heavy Bomb Group flew its B17's from the USA to Rougham, and on to Rattlesden next day.
Also in November 1943 the RAF's 1653 Conversion Unit formed to become a Stirling training unit at Chedburgh. The 1653 Conversion Unit stayed at Chedburgh until December 1944 when they left for North Luffenham.
On 3rd November 1943 the American 8th Air Force flew its first 500 bomber raid from our eastern counties and devastated the port of Wilhelmshaven. By 13th December the American build up was such that they could send 649 bombers to Bremen, Hamburg and Kiel, and 763 to Frankfurt in January 1944. |
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In Bury the house we now call Angel Corner was presented to the National Trust by Mrs Freeman, the owner. Its postal address was number 8, Angel Hill, and this was how it was known at the time. It was used for war work, notably by the Ministry of Food for the local control of the rationing system. It was used after the war also as the base for emergency planning.
During 1943, Bury Borough Council made plans to build a new housing estate on the north side of town. Land was available within the borough boundary since the boundary had been extended from Tollgate Lane northwards by the Boundary Review in 1934. | | 1944 | In January, the Conservative MP for Bury, Colonel Heilgers, was killed in a train crash at Ilford. The bye election was held in the following month, the Conservative Major Edgar Keating of Westley Hall, was elected. The official parties had agreed not to field candidates during the war.
Welcome Clubs were set up around the country, including Haverhill to look after visiting soldiers. In May came "Salute the Soldier" week. ARP exercises continued with many locals playing the part of injured civilians. RAF Castle Camps was attacked by an enemy bomber, and three bombs narrowly missed Helions Bumpstead. The plane was shot down near Ipswich. American fighters were often overhead at Haverhill from RAF Debden. One crashed at Little Smith Green, one pilot parachuted out and landed in the Police Station yard along the Pightle. In February 1944 the Americans at Debden converted to P51 Mustangs.
In 1944 the bombing effort was switched to the enemy airforce itself. The American 15th Air Force was set up in Italy to attack Germany from the south, and the United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe (USSTAF) was set up based on the 8th AF and encompassing the 15th AF in February 1944. USSTAF's aim was to destroy the Luftwaffe and prevent it from hindering Operation Overlord, the invasion of Europe. This reorganisation allowed co-ordination of American airpower over the whole European theatre of war. This was in marked contrast to the Luftwaffe whose command was divided between France and Germany.
The existing American First SAD at Honington was now joined by the 364th Fighter Group. From February 1944 to July 1944 the 364th flew the P38 Lightning, and then were converted to Mustangs.
The First Scouting Force was also based here from September 1944 to lead the missions of the First Air Division flying P51 Mustangs.
USSTAF's opening move was the "Big Week" of 19th to 25th February 1944 when the 8th AF and 15th AF combined in heavy attacks on German aircraft factories. The long range fighter escorts no longer stayed with the bombers but strafed airfields and sought out the enemy. The Luftwaffe suffered terrible losses. A total of 2,000 Luftwaffe pilots were lost over these months from February to May.
In February to May 1944 the USSTAF also suffered heavy losses of 1,992 bombers and 1,798 fighters but these were more than replaced by new production. For example Sudbury airfield was opened in 1944 and for 12 months was an active American wartime base, although local boys called it Acton Aerodrome. The 486th Bomb Group arrived at Sudbury from the USA in April 1944 flying B-24 Liberators, and 46 missions were flown in the B24. In July 1944 the Group converted to the B-17G Flying Fortresses and flew another 142 missions. Although the Sudbury Group suffered thirty three B24's and B17's lost in action, as did many others, by June the Americans had 1,200 more bombers and 1,000 more fighters in this country than in January. The way was clear for Operation Overlord, the invasion of France.
Lavenham Airfield was developed around Lodge Farm in 1943. The 487th aircrew arrived in April 1944 flying B24 Liberator bombers. Its first Commanding Officer was Colonel Beirne Lay who had been a Hollywood script-writer. Although he was shot down in May 1944 one of his scripts was to become the film "Twelve O'Clock High". The 487th flew 46 missions in Liberators until July 1944 when the group converted to the B17 Flying Fortresses.
Shepherds' Grove airfield at Stanton was, in fact, built for the USAAF in 1943, but in April 1944 it was assigned to the RAF's 3 Group as a base for Stirling bombers and a satellite of Stradishall . At the end of 1944 Shepherds Grove was transferred to the RAF's 38 Group.
The Canadian 410 Squadron again flew Mosquitos from Castle Camps until April 1944. In July to October 1944 68 Squadron's Mosquitos also arrived, also 151 and 25 Squadron.
In May 1944 199 Squadron moved its bombers from RAF Lakenheath to North Creake and 149 Squadron moved to Methwold. Lakenheath was inactive until July 1948.
In May 1944 the Stirlings at RAF Tuddenham were replaced by Lancasters and they flew a large number of important day and night operations until the end of the war.
In late May the fighters had begun "Chattanooga Choo-Choo", an operation to destroy rolling stock in France, Belgium, Germany and as far east as Poland. This was all as a prelude to invasion, to cut enemy supply lines and finally, a week before D-Day, every Seine crossing from Paris to the sea was destroyed. The USSTAF Bombers, RAF Bomber Command and light bombers also attacked every airfield within 350 miles of the invasion zone, rendering them nearly unusable in the last weeks before D-Day.
In summer 1944 there was a massive movement of bombs and supplies by rail to airbases at Birdbrook, Halstead, White Colne and Earls Colne. Special trains rumbled through Haverhill night after night.
But it became clear when D-Day was announced on June 6th what all the local activity among the troops had been about. Next day the first V1 Flying Bomb, or Doodle-bug, landed in Kent and 8,000 more were sent in the next six weeks. A few were seen over Haverhill, and one landed near Castle Lane. Most came from from northern France and both US and RAF bomber commands devoted considerable efforts to destroy their bases.
During June the small RAF occupied airfield at Westley was closed down, as it was no longer needed.
On June 6th 1944 D-Day began with 3 air-borne divisions of 24,000 men dropped around beachheads. Bombers dropped 10,000 tons of bombs on coastal defences just before landing craft hit the beaches and the fighters attacked artillery and troop positions. The American 8th AF and 9th AF had 3,000 planes in the air, and only two enemy planes got through to the beachheads.
The aerial bombardment prevented any significant Germany counter attack and even Rommel was shot up by a British fighter.
For the men of 1st Battalion, the Suffolks, this was the culmination of months of arduous training. They were to be part of 8th Infantry Brigade, the assault Brigade of the 3rd British Division. Their role was as reserve battalion with the job of taking a dominating feature some 3000 yards inland, to be known as Hillman, but called Point 61 by the Germans. They would reach it via an assault on strongpoint Morris and the village of Colleville sur Orne.
At 0711 Morris was to be bombed by thirteen B17 Flying Fortresses from the 447th Bomb Group out of Rattlesden. Due to operational difficulties with high level bombing over friendly troops, only 6 planes dropped bombs. Hillman was to have been attacked by six B17's of the 94th Bomb Group out of Rougham. No bombs fell on Hillman, which remained totally operational.
The First Battalion of the Suffolks returned to France at about 0830 on 6th June 1944 at Queen Beach, Normandy. Queen was the third of four sectors which made up Sword Beach. Sword Beach was the most easterly of the landing areas, the Americans landing on the western beaches. By 10 am C Company had taken Colleville and met Monsieur le Mayor. B Company moved on Morris, where they found the enemy so shattered by bombing and naval artillery that they soon surrendered. A Company now came under shellfire as they moved on to Hillman. The attack began at about 1310, but it was to become clear that not only had Hillman not suffered any preliminary softening up, but it was clearly much more heavily fortified than the intelligence reports had revealed. When 1 Norfolk tried to bypass Hillman they found out how strong it was, and what a commanding position it had. They suffered 40 casualties. It took until 2000 on D Day to clear position Hillman.
On 28th June 1944 they captured the Chateau de la Londe, near Caen, with 161 casualties, a most bitter and costly engagement for 1 Battalion. The South Lancashires had already been repulsed and 1 Suffolk and 2 East Yorkshires were then sent in. The chateau was heavily defended by 30 to 40 Panzer Tanks and infantry. The Sunday Pictorial of 2nd July called it the "Grimmest mile in France". 2 East Yorks suffered 99 casualties. For eleven days the chateau was held under constant German shellfire from Caen. Montgomery ordered the bombing of Caen on 7th July, and 464 bombers of the RAF wrought massive destruction on that town.
On 16th July, the 1 Suffolk Battalion was trucked to join Operation Goodwood, their task being to capture Sannerville and Banneville. This they did easily as it appears a hole had appeared in German lines, but this was quickly filled and the advance held up.
On 1st August the battalion managed to celebrate Minden Day in some style, and next day were moved 20 miles south west of Caen to la Beny Bocage. Back in Bury, the Suffolk Regiment was given the Freedom of the Borough on August 5th. In Normandy, On the 10th, Operation Grouse began, to move down the road from Vire to Tinchebray. The crossroads at Coquard were captured, but B Company only cleared German parachute troops from the nearby wood by suffering almost total casualties in the night of 13th/14th August. Since leaving Vire there had been constant action with 168 casualties. By 16th August Tinchebray was achieved. Captain Mayhew and 1 Suffolk's carriers entered Flers before the 11th Armoured Division arrived. On the 20th the rest of the battalion arrived and settled in for training and reinforcement.
On 3rd September they moved 150 miles to Les Andelys across the Seine, close to Richard the Lionheart's Chateau Gaillard, now a ruin. Eventually 1 Suffolk recovered the Battalion's drum which had been hidden at Roubaix in 1940 during the retreat. The Battalion fought its way to Brinkum, near Bremen via Overloon and Venraij in the Netherlands.
The Second Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment had been on the North West Frontier in 1939 but moved to the Arakon and Imphal Campaigns in Burma where the clearance of Japanese Bunkers 'Bamboo' and 'Isaac' were notable actions. The bitter fighting against the Japanese, and the terrible conditions in the tropical jungles, seemed to receive scant recognition back home, where the war in Europe, and D-Day, seemed more immediate. This led the Far East campaigns to be called the Forgotten War by the men involved.
Similar feelings were held by the men fighting their way inch by inch through Italy, having already spent long hard years in North Africa. This led to the ironic refrain, "We are the D-Day Dodgers, in Sunny Italy."
In 1944 the Suffolk Regiment was granted the Honorary Freedom of the Borough of Bury St Edmunds. Up to this time this honour had only been bestowed upon notable individuals.
Back at home, August saw "Holiday at Home Week", and the street lighting was allowed to run at 2% capacity, better than complete blackout.
The first V2 Rocket exploded in London on September 8th, 1944, but none were seen near Haverhill.
By mid September, the ground attack had reached the Rhine and some bombers were switched back to strategic bombing of Germany. In fact 70% of the bomb tonnage dropped in Europe and the Mediterranean was delivered after D-Day.
German Prisoners were taken in large numbers and reception centres were set up, from where they were dispersed to camps all over the country. One such camp, to be known as Camp 260, was set up at Hardwick Heath. It was built of Nissen Huts, with four blocks of 16 huts in each block.
Pursuing its plans for post war housing, the Bury St Edmunds Borough Council purchased land sufficient for 700 houses on farmland which would become the Mildenhall Road Estate.
In October a V1 Flying Bomb was seen over the northern edge of Bury. The rocket fell to earth in Hyde Wood and the explosion was so great that it damaged Hyde Wood Cottage, some 100 metres away.
In October 1944 616 Squadron arrived at Debden with its new Meteor jet fighters to develop tactics.
Number 195 Squadron arrived at RAF Wratting Common in October 1944 for concentrated attacks on oil targets in Lancasters.
In December, the Home Guard were stood down, but news was still arriving of local men lost in action, and news also of conditions in Japanese POW camps. The Haverhill Homecoming Fund was set up in anticipation of welcoming returning soldiers, sailors and airmen.
The RAF 1653 Conversion Unit stayed at Chedburgh until December 1944 when they left for North Luffenham. It was replaced by 218 Squadron in that month flying Lancasters as part of 3 Group's bomber offensive.
On 24th December a 2,000 bomber raid on German airfields led to the death of the American 4th Bomb Wing Commander, General Castle. Although the 4th Combat Bomb Wing had its HQ at Rougham, its commander, Colonel, then Brigadier-General Frederick W Castle, lost his life flying out of Lavenham with the 487th. On December 24th 1944 he commanded the 487th and led the air task force in the biggest 8th Air Force action of the war involving over 2,000 heavy bombers. Following engine trouble, his lagging B17 was shot down by enemy fighters. He was well known in Bury to the local population. His portrait hangs in the Swan Hotel at Lavenham, and another in the Mayors' Parlour of St Edmundsbury Borough Council in Angel Corner, Bury St Edmunds.
With the constant bombing activities going on, and the weather being so poor, mishaps and accidents were frequent. On December 30th, Cliff Hall recalls that 39 Flying Fortresses were assembling at the western end of Rougham Airfield for a raid on Mannheim. During take-off, Fortress McHenry, aircraft 210583, from 332nd squadron, developed engine trouble, and after becoming airborne, the engine burst into flames. After clearing Bury, the pilot released his payload of 20 High Explosive bombs. They should have been safe as the arming pins had not been removed, but three exploded in an open field to the west of Hospital Road. The plane returned to Rougham on three engines, and survived the rest of the war, having done 102 missions.
| | 1945 | Although the end of the war was in sight, all the old restrictions were still in force. The winter was particularly cold, and frost and ice caused many accidents.
On January 5th, the 490th Bomb Group were on a training mission out of their airfield at Eye. They were approaching the north of Bury when tragedy struck at 2.30 pm, wrote Cliff Hall in a letter to the Bury Free Press on March 29th 2002. Two of the B-17 Flying Fortresses collided and crashed to earth. Wreckage fell into Eastgate Street, an engine landed on the railway tracks and the main part of one aircraft fell into a settling lagoon at the Sugarbeet Factory at Mermaid Pits in Hollow Road. The second aircraft fell on Mr Long's property at Hall Farm, Fornham St Martin.
A third aircraft, a P-51 Mustang flying at a lower level, was hit by the falling wreckage and crashed south of Bury, near the rugby club at the Haberden. The pilot fell into the grounds of the King Edward VI Grammar School. An ambulance stationed with the 94th Bomb Group at Rougham, driven by Corporal George Winer, helped to recover the body.
It was a sad day for the 8th Airforce and the town of Bury, for 16 crew members of the Flying Fortresses lost their lives, as did the pilot of the Mustang. Only three survived from the B-17's. But more was in store.
The next day, at 8 am on January 6th, the 94th Bomb Group was forming up at the west end of the main runway at Rougham Airfield, with 42 aircraft getting ready for a mission to Kaiserslauten. There was thick ice covering everything, and one aircraft was taking off every 60 seconds. At 8.15, Lt Jack Collins, of 410th Squadron, released the brakes on Mission Mistress, aircraft 297082. Two-thirds of the way down the runway, after the point of no return, he lost number four engine. The aeroplane was carrying a full load of six 1,000 lb bombs and 2,000 gallons of gasolene.
The pilot managed to get the aircraft airborne. Lt Collins jettisoned one of the bombs but could not maintain altitude and crashed into Home Covert, on Mr Lawson's Mount Farm, near Moreton Hall. Mission Mistress caught fire on impact and five minutes later four of the 1,000lb bombs exploded, rocking the countryside and damaging Mr Lawson's farm buildings. The main blast went eastwards, blowing doors and windows open in living quarters more than 2.5 miles away. Debris also reached that far. Sgt Jens Draggaset had left the 332nd Squadron engineering hut and was about to mount his bicycle to see if he could help, when half the case from a 1,000 lb bomb landed at his feet. Six months later, a 50 calibre machine gun from this plane was found in a haystack at Rougham, where it had fallen from the blast. Five of the crew of nine died, and four survived.
On 28th January, another Flying Fortress crashed at East Barton, and local boys swarmed over the wreckage, looking for souvenirs. About 20 of them landed up in the Thingoe Juvenile Court, and were bound over.
The Homecoming Fund had a good start in Haverhill but lost momentum as so many Haverhill men were still in Japanese hands.
In January 1945 Numbers 196 and 299 Stirling transport squadrons moved in to Shepherd's Grove airfield, as at the end of 1944 Shepherds Grove had been transferred to 38 Group. These squadrons were involved in supply drops for Special Operations and towed gliders from Shepherds' Grove as part of the Rhine crossing. Stirlings from Shepherd's Grove continued to deliver mail and stores overseas until March 1946.
By February 1945 Allied air power was so overwhelming that thousands of tons of bombs were dropped on Berlin and on 13th, 14th and 15th the fearful firestorm of Dresden resulted in over 35,000 deaths.
In March Bury was to receive the last of its aerial attacks by the Luftwaffe. This was a machine gun attack, and after this the town was troubled no more.
Part of 90 Squadron at Tuddenham had formed the nucleus of 186 Squadron in October 1944 and moved to Stradishall in December of that year. This left room for a replacement. In March 1945 138 Squadron moved to Tuddenham from Tempsford, and converted to Lancasters.
Number 195 Squadron at Wratting Common attacked Dresden, and finally Bad Oldesloe in April 1945.
On 7th May 1945 the Germans surrendered in Reims. On May 8th, VE Day was declared, but local people already knew the European War was over. Celebrations were overshadowed by the continued Japanese imprisonment of most local men, but Fire Guard Orders were cancelled and equipment auctioned off. Public Shelters were locked up, and weather forecasts were resumed by the BBC.
After VE Day all the air power gathered in the UK by America was available to move to the Pacific.
The 447th Bomb Group based at Rattlesden, for example, had flown 257 missions and lost 153 aircraft in action, before flying back to the USA in June 1945.
297 missions were flown out of the American base at Ridgewell up to 25th April 1945 and 131 B17's were lost in action. The 381st Bomb Group returned to the USA in June 1945, leaving Ridgewell to RAF Maintenance Command. Number 94 MU was here from September 1946 to March 1957, and now the area is largely farmland.
After the war in July 1945 the station at Debden also reverted to the RAF, and the American 4th Fighter Group had to move to Steeple Morden, to return to the USA in November 1945.
Winston Churchill had headed the war time government, and was a Conservative as well, but at the General Election on 25th July 1945 there was a Labour landslide, gaining 200 seats. Even Sudbury South went Labour to Colonel Hamilton OBE MP. At Bury, the Conservative B Clifton Brown had a majority of nearly 6,000 over the Labour candidate, Miss C McCall, Britain's first woman qualified as a psychiatric social worker.
In August the full street lighting was turned back on.
On 14th August the Japanese surrendered following atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
On August 15th, VJ Day was celebrated all over Suffolk. In Haverhill there was by a great bonfire on the Recreation Ground, Church bells were rung and flags were hung out. The Co-op Silver Band played on the Market Hill. The celebrations were greater than for VE Day as so many of the Suffolk Regiment could now be released from Japanese Camps. Dinners and street parties were held all over Haverhill.
The Americans continued to leave. Great Ashfield had been home for the 385th Bomb Group since June 1943. But in August 1945 they flew home. When the American 486th Bomb Group left Sudbury, also in August 1945, they presented a bronze tablet to the citizens of the town for their fellowship, understanding and hospitality which can still be seen on the Town Hall.
By 1945 there were a range of facilities for servicemen open in Bury St Edmunds. There were various cafés and teashops as well as the official or voluntary providers.
In March 1945, Technical Sargeant John T Appleby of the USAAF, had been sent to the UK and posted to Cockfield. He returned to the USA in November, and was to publish a well-known book about these experiences in 1948.
In his book "Suffolk Summer" John Appleby described the following places. The Forces Study Centre was in Chequer Square, diagonally across from the Norman Tower, "in a pleasant house of rambling passages and old oak beams." It was operated by the British Army Educational Corps with at least one good concert a week, classes in French and German, carpentry, woodwork and toymaking, a play reading group and discussion groups. At weekends excursions were arranged and troops and townspeople alike used these facilities.
The Salvation Army had a canteen in Abbeygate Street open all hours for tea and sandwiches. The YMCA hostel also served tea in the garden.
The people of Bury ran their own Sunday afternoon Canteen in the Athenaeum on Angel Hill for the troops. Committees of volunteers provided teas, sandwiches and cakes, and a lending library and mending service occupied a corner each of the ballroom. According to Appleby the fare was the best in Bury and you could eat your fill for under a shilling. In today's money this is 5 pence, but must be related to wages of the day, when a workman might get £5 a week. American service pay was well over three times the English, and their rations were far more generous and diverse. Chocolate bars, sweets and chewing gum were liberally distributed to any civilians the Americans encountered. Stricter parents forbade their offspring to ask for sweets and often frowned on any contact at all. The Athenaeum Canteen closed in September 1945, but it is interesting to note that then, just as today, visitors wrestled with its pronunciation and "Athenium" was mainly used by the troops.
Appleby records that these places welcomed troops of all nationalities, whereas the US Red Cross Clubs barred British servicemen unless guests of Americans. The American Red Cross Officer's Club in Bury was in Westgate Street, facing up Guildhall Street.
British soldiers might use the Church Army Canteen in St Botolphs Lane, which is now a Suffolk Housing Association housing scheme, or the British Restaurant in Crown Street where there is now a yard for the Brewery.
The Royal Corps of Signals had a signal office in a house on Southgate Green, now demolished by the roadworks in that areas. Dispatch riders went from there all over East Anglia emphasising the fact that local telephone communications were rudimentary as well as insecure. The men were billeted in homes in Southgate Street and around.
On the agricultural front some Land Army women were billeted in a house on Southgate Green. Prisoners of War were housed on Hardwick Heath in a makeshift camp, and after the war were put to work on local farms. Italians built the concrete roads for the newly planned Mildenhall Road Estate.
The elegant Queen Ann house now known as Angel Corner housed the Ministry of Food during the war, although it was responsible for rationing it out, rather than producing it. In 1946 it became the local Civil Defence HQ for Area 14 (most of West Suffolk) and in the 1960's its cellars were used as the Emergency Planning Centre.
More POW's were returning home from German hands, but none from the Far East. People had high hopes for the future but these were dampened by the news that new Ration Books would be issued for the next period of two years. Celebrations, fetes, fun fairs and circuses were held throughout the summer.
In the aftermath of war many of our buildings looked different as railing had been removed to be melted down "for the war effort". Even pots and pans were collected for their aluminium to use for aeroplanes. Sadly, most of these efforts were wasted as the materials were not of good enough quality.
The RAF left Newmarket Heath in Summer 1945 but after 1946 light aircraft continued to deliver people to the races at this airstrip.
Number 195 Squadron from Wratting Common then did eight supply drops to the Dutch and POW repatriation missions before disbanding on 14th August 1945.
The Lancasters of 218 Squadron flying out of Chedburgh had dropped food in the relief of Holland but disbanded in August 1945. However, Chedburgh itself remained open. In September 1945 Polish Squadrons 301 and 304 arrived with Warwicks and some Wellingtons flying transports, mainly to the Middle East.
The 487th Bomb Group left Lavenham in October 1945, to return to the USA after a total of 185 missions and 48 planes lost. Although the American 364th Fighter Group left in November 1945, Honington remained as HQ for the VIII AF Fighter Command until February 1946.
After the war ended the 94th Bomb Group stayed on at Rougham Airfield to carry out leaflet and food distributions to displaced persons throughout Europe, and finally departed Rougham in December 1945.
At the end of the war the Women's Land Army and the Womens Timber Corps received no commemorative medals or recognition from the Government in comparison with all other services. Their only souvenir was the cloth armband that they wore. They had no clothing issued at the end of their service, received no clothing coupons and no gratuity. However, the WLA would continue its work until its disbandment in 1952. |
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Barbara Stone by Rose Mead
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| 1946 | In January, the Bury St Edmunds Borough Council began to build the first of many new streets of houses on the Mildenhall Road Council Estate. The layout and house types were designed by a local firm of architects called Mitchell and Weston. In 1946 only 22 houses were built, but this estate would eventually house 4,000 people. Building it would continue until 1960, when over 50 new roads, avenues, closes and streets were finished.
In 1945 307 and 85 Squadrons flew from Castle Camps in Mosquitos but the station now closed down in January 1946.
Honington remained as HQ for the American VIII AF Fighter Command until 26th February 1946. This meant that of the 122 bases of the Mighty Eighth, it was the last to be vacated.
In March 1946 RAF Transport Command moved in at Honington, and the base would become crucial to the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49. Honington has since seen Canberras, the Valiant V-Bomber, Buccaneers, Shackletons and Tornadoes.
Stirlings from Shepherd's Grove continued to deliver mail and stores overseas until March 1946.
In May 1946 the station was taken over by 60 Group as a satellite of Watton Radio Warfare Establishment, and some Ansons and Lancasters were positioned here.
In March 1946, at the age of 78, Rose Mead was found dead at the foot of her stairs in her Crown Street studio. By now she was actually living at St Edmunds Hotel on the Angel Hill. By the 1940's she led a secluded life, but her reputation as Bury's best loved artist has grown stronger over the rest of the century. Born in 1867, she had begun an international career in art, but family responsibilities were to tie her to Bury to nurse her mother in 1897. She never married and took up a feminist stance, often counselling female aspiring artists to seek fulfillment in a career, rather than in marriage. Many of her works were sold through Harold Jarman's photography shop at 16 Abbeygate Street, but she was also capable of falling out with him over artistic disagreements. A collection of her work is owned by the St Edmundsbury Borough Council and some can be seen in the Manor House Museum collection.
In March 1946 Winston Churchill referred to an iron curtain descending across the continent. The cold war began because of the struggle for control of the politics of the Eastern European nations between the Soviet Union and the western democracies.
Number 622 Squadron disbanded at Mildenhall in August 1945 and was replaced by 44 Squadron, who would remain here until August 1946. The base remained active.
After the war Stradishall left 3 Group and passed to 48 Group Transport Command and in August 1945 Number 51 and 158 Squadrons arrived in Stirling CV's and these flew until March 1946 when 51 Squadron received Yorks. In September 1946 Stradishall reverted to 3 Group and five squadrons of Lancasters were based here until February 1949.
In April 1946 Numbers 149 and 207 Squadrons had arrived at RAF Tuddenham, although only on half strength. Tuddenham closed for flying in November 1946, but would return to duty in 1954.
Many peace celebrations were held in 1946 both to give time to organise them, and to wait for the better weather. In addition it took many months for Far East Prisoners of War to return. |
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POW Camp on Hardwick Heath
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By September, 1946 there were still 386,000 German POW's in the UK working on the land and on reconstruction projects. They were paid the going rate for the job. The rule was enforced of "No Fraternising" even in church. One such camp was Camp number 260 at Hardwick Heath with about 64 huts. It was said to contain mainly Italian prisoners, but there were also many Germans. Parties of prisoners were collected by local farmers to work on the land, and it is said that some of the roads for the new Mildenhall Road estate were built by Italian prisoners. There was also a camp at Acton, near Sudbury and another at Botesdale. The German prisoners at Hardwick Heath had their own newsletter called "Lagerecho", which continued to be produced up to February 1948.
In December 1946 the Fraternisation Ban was lifted. So Christmas Day for many POW's was spent in British homes. The public felt the German POW's had a raw deal and should have been sent home.
In Britain The Save Europe Fund was set up. "What will winter be like in Europe this year?" was their slogan. Food parcels were sent to Germany including the eastern zone under the Russians. Letters and parcels ceased when the Russians clamped down. The winter of 1946/47 was unusually harsh.
Education was changing as well. The Grammar School at Bury became a Voluntary Controlled School under the Local Education Authority.
The payments previously made to the Borough of Bury St Edmunds by the Guildhall Feoffment trust to reduce the rates burden on the town were ended. They had been paid since 1843, and the final payment was £7.3s.6d.
Work began on building new housing, although at first the emphasis was on speed. In Haverhill pre-fabricated homes were started at Burton End, just past Primrose Hill, including the ten homes of Castle Square. Huts and military buildings at Hamlet Croft were also used for temporary homes until plans for Parkway Estate could start. Some families at Sudbury were housed on the ex-American air base while waiting for housing. Make do and mend was to remain the ethos for many grey post - war years.
To show that traffic was now being taken seriously, there was a one-way system set up in the town of Bury.
In the country, things were naturally slower to get started again after the war, but in 1946 rural West Suffolk had hardly any sewerage, no piped water and little electricity. The rural district councils had to take action.
Before the war there had been little enough good roads, and no industry outside Bury. By 1945, the wartime building of airfields had improved roads, and left large areas of building and hardstandings where once had been agriculture. Gradually, sites at Stanton, Rougham, Chedburgh and Barnham would become used by a variety of size and type of industry.
For the moment, however, homes in the Thingoe RDC area had no refuse collection service, and less than 5% of the population had piped water. Thingoe had no sewerage at all, and owned just under 400 council houses. Thingoe now bought its first medium sized refuse vehicle in 1946, and acquired offices at number 1, Northgate Street in Bury. Previously it held its council meetings in the Guildhall. | | 1947 | During 1947 about 15,000 POW's a month were sent home. By the end of 1947 some 24,000 German POW's had stayed on in Britain mainly because they had met local girls, or their homes were in the Soviet zone, and they feared further reprisals.
Bury St Edmunds officially adopted RAF Honington in recognition of its valuable work during the war, and its close relations with the town.
In March, 1947 occured the last great flooding of the Fens. Some 3000 acres of Lakenheath Fen were inundated and the floodwaters reached to the edge of the village. The Womens Land Army was still in operation, and the Lakenheath hostel, being situated at a low point at the north end of the High Street, was flooded - including the dormitories, the water being right across the road. The dressing tables from the cubicles were moved out before the water level rose but the bunks and wardrobes had to be left in. The W.L.A. girls were evacuated to a large house at Risby and elsewhere - until the floods receded.
Across the country gas works were nationalised, and the production of town gas in Haverhill was soon halted. The fuel office still operated in the Council Offices at Swan Lane as petrol and paraffin was still on ration.
In 1947 the Bury St Edmunds Borough Council lost its education powers when the West Suffolk County Council Education Committee was established by law. At the same time the King Edward VI Grammar School in Bury was taken into the State Funded Sector. Financial pressures had increased as demands grew ever greater for the provision of universal education, regardless of means.
In these post war years emigration to the colonies such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada came to be increasingly attractive to many people, particularly ex-servicemen. Sybil Andrews and her husband decided that a better life could be found in Canada, and emigrated in 1947. She would never return to her home town of Bury, and had only been a visitor since 1922. Since 1951, working in Canada, she has obtained international recognition as an artist of merit. Most of her work is today in the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta, but a few pieces were donated to the Bury Museums Service.
The West Suffolk County council needed more office space and in 1947 acquired the Manor House on Honey Hill, built by the First Earl of Bristol in 1736-8. It had been owned by Walter Guinness, Lord Moyne from 1908 to 1933, and now it was ignominiously turned into office space.
Also in Bury a Bus Station was built next to Moyses Hall, on the site of today's Clinton Cards and Macdonalds. Busses still stopped on the Cornhill for town services, opposite Market Thoroughfare.
| | 1948 | The National Health Service was created and the resulting Ministry of Health was deemed to be too large. Its environmental functions were split off to form the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. In Bury, the Public Assistance Institution would become St Mary's Hospital for Geriatric Care.
Hospitals such as the West Suffolk Hospital in Hospital Road, Bury, now became taken over by the new NHS.
The LNER and all other railway companies, were nationalised to became under the British Railways Board. Rail closures had been carried out by the old companies in the 1930's as motor vehicles spread and became more popular. The war had halted these closures, and recovery needed them for a time. However, the march of the motor car would continue in the 1950's.
Similarly, on 1st April, the Electricity supply industry was also taken into public ownership, following the Electricity Act of 1947. The Eastern Electricity Board took over local suppliers like the East Anglian Electric Supply Company, The Newmarket Electric Light Company, and the Ipswich Corporation electricity undertaking. The Bury St Edmunds Corporation had already sold out to the East Anglian Supply Company before the war.
In 1948, a start was made on the Parkway Estate in Haverhill, and the first twelve houses were built in Park Avenue.
The Soviet Union blockaded all surface transport into West Berlin in June 1948. In July 1948 RAF Lakenheath came to life again, having been deactivated by the RAF in May 1944. The USAF flew in B29's of 2nd Bomb Group to help in the Berlin airlift, and the Americans stayed on. Transports and Tankers followed and in 1951 93rd Bomb Group flew B50's from the base. Giant B36's and Globemasters followed.
John T Appleby's book "Suffolk Summer" was published. The author gave the copyright to the Borough Council of Bury St Edmunds. All royalties would be used to maintain the Old English Rose Garden in the Abbey Gardens as a permanent memorial to the American Servicemen who gave their lives in the cause of freedom.
By November 1948, the last German POW's were sent home, of those who wished to go. The Lagerecho newsletter of the German prisoners at Hardwick Heath, had already had its final issue in February 1948.
At Hardwick Heath, the huts which had housed POW's were now pressed into service as temporary housing while families were waiting for one of the new houses on the Mildenhall Road Estate. Many of these were ex-servicemen with new wives and babies.
The Borough decided to buy its own stock of library books instead of hiring county books. Moyses Hall Museum acquired a copy of the Bury Chronicles from the Creation up to 1283. It was Lot 22 in Sotheby's Sale of February 9th 1948. | | 1949 | In February 1949 four squadrons of Lancasters arrived at RAF Mildenhall and later converted to Lincolns. However the Lincoln was already out of date and in March 1950 these squadrons disbanded.
In April 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty was signed which committed the USA to defend Europe against Soviet attack.
Gradually there was a massive build up of an airlift of supplies into Berlin through until September 1949, although the blockade was officially lifted in May 1949. |
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In April 1949, the American periodical "The National Geographic Magazine" was devoted to The British Way, a series of looks at life in post war Britain and the contribution of Britain to the arts, medicine and science. It included this picture of prefects at the King Edward VI Grammar School in Bury, studying a world globe. It referred to the fact that John Winthrop the younger studied at the school and was eventually to become a colonial governor of Connecticut.
Elsewhere in the same article it was stated that "Though England is on a near privation diet, nothing seems to damp the spirits of the young. They even make a joke of the restrictions to show that they can 'carry on' whatever happens."
In July 1949 the RAF station at Stradishall became Number 203 Advanced Flying School for Meteors, a few Spitfires, Vampires and Harvards into the 1950's. Number 203 became redesignated 226 Operational Conversion Unit but continued to fly many types of aircraft until 1955.
By 1949 over 2,000 acres of Lakenheath Fen was carrying crops of wheat, barley, potatoes, sugar beet, chicory and market garden crops - largely thanks to the hard work of the Womens Land Army.
| | 1950 | In 1950 the start of the Korean War led to European re-equipping and consideration of the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons.
In March 1950 the four squadrons of Lincoln Bombers based at RAF Mildenhall were disbanded. The base was available to meet Lend lease obligations to the USA. In mid-1950 the Americans came to Mildenhall, took it over from the RAF and high security was installed. By June one squadron of B50's of 93rd Bomb Group arrived and stayed until February 1951 when 509th Bomb Group replaced them. The 2nd and 22nd Bomb Group followed in succession.
In 1950 the RAF station at Shepherd's Grove was put on Care and Maintenance.
The Stanford Battle Area was a source of post-war controversy when its inhabitants were never allowed to return to live there. In 1950 its future was settled when the Ministry of Defence bought it by compulsory purchase for £25.00 an acre. The open market value was said to be £250.00 an acre. No value at all was placed upon the wooded areas because the timber had been damaged by shrapnel and military action during training there.
To add to the grey conditions of life in post war England, the summers started to deteriorate as well. This cooler trend continued into the 1970's. | | 1951 | Rushbrook Hall had suffered a fire and was demolished. Its owner, Lord Rothschild presented some of the salvaged oak panelling to Thingoe RDC for use in Members Room. These panels have moved with the authority, and currently grace the Borough Offices on Angel Hill. |
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In Bury St Edmunds the Council began construction work on a water tower in West Road to supply the needs of the growing town for piped water. It would be completed in 1952. Bury's population was now 20,056, and a modern water supply system was needed. Nearly 5 miles of new mains were laid as well as building the 100 foot tower.
The growth of building on the Mildenhall Road Estate led to the opening of St George's Church Hall in Anselm Avenue. It would be consecrated as a parish church in 1967.
In 1950 the RAF station at Shepherds Grove had been put on Care and Maintenance. In 1951 it was loaned to the USAF and in August the 116th Squadron of the 81st Fighter Intercepter Wing brought in F86A Sabres, the first in this country. 92nd Squadron joined soon after.
In 1952 the 116th became the 78th Fighter Squadron, and in 1954 received F84F Thunderstreaks.
In October 1951 Strategic Air Command (SAC) took control of RAF Mildenhall.
Since before the war there had been evening classes run in Bury for the training needs of business. After the war classes were also arranged during daytimes for technical education to support apprentices, particularly for the building trade. In 1951, it was decided to formalise the running of these classes under a new body, to be called the West Suffolk Technical Institute. At first they occupied a few huts on the site of the Silver Jubilee School in Grove Road, today the location of the King Edward VI Comprehensive School.
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The Suffolk Show was not solely an Ipswich affair in those days, and every year it moved around the county. In 1951 it was held at Rougham, just outside Bury. The picture shows the display mounted by the Borough of Bury St Edmunds, and the photograph was taken by Gerald Lambert who had a photographic studio in Well Street, in Bury. On the left stands Macebearer Harry Meakins, on the right is Charles Bye, and between them stands the Mayor's Officer, Robert Dorling.
Wizard Fireworks began manufacturing fireworks in 1951 at Chedburgh.
In 1951 Haverhill had a declining population of about 4,000. The Urban District Council negotiated with the Government and promoted the idea of town expansion. Haverhill was thus a pioneer of town expansion.
| | 1952 | Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. The Americans made Lakenheath base secure as part of its cold war preparations. High security arrived in 1952 with a high wire fence so that B47's could arrive in 1953 together with other "secret" planes including the U2.
Halifaxs had flown from Chedburgh in 1946 for 301 and 304 Squadrons of the RAF, and were used on trunk routes overseas until December 1946. The site of Chedburgh Airfield was sold in 1952 and is now a light industrial estate where use can be made of buildings and hardstandings. The remainder is agricultural once again.
The Town Development Act 1952 started a move to relocate people out of London, not by the use of new towns as hitherto, but by developing existing communities. Haverhill had already announced that it was prepared to expand to between 8,000 and 10,000 population. Before the war the population of Bury had been around 16,000 since about 1880. It was now about 20,000, and the Borough Council at first aimed for 25,000.
Hengrave Hall became the property of the Assumption Nuns, who had moved their girls' boarding school here from Kensington Square. Some of the contents of Hengrave Hall were also sold off, and the Bury Borough Council acquired two portraits by Mary Beale, a 17th century artist who was born at Barrow. These can be seen in the Manor House Museum in Bury St Edmunds today, having previously been on display in the Clock Museum when it was located at 8 Angel Hill. |
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By now most of the families at Hardwick Heath, living in the old POW camp, had been rehoused on the Mildenhall Road Estate.
The Womens Land Army was not disbanded until 1952. The following year the Lakenheath hostel was converted into 17 'family units' which were rented to homeless couples. This accomodation survived until 1965, when it was demolished and replaced by sheltered housing. The timber camp at Wordwell was also abandoned.
Identity cards were finally withdrawn in 1952. When war came the National Registration Scheme required all civilians to carry the cards at all times. Although people had more or less got used to them, in 1951, a Mr Willcock was prosecuted for refusing on principle to produce his card for a motoring offence. The case ended in the High Court in 1952, when his conviction was upheld, but the Lord Chief Justice openly criticised the continuance of the scheme.
Woolworth's came to Bury in 1952, on their present site, although the shop was rebuilt and extended in the 1960's.
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| In Bury, Abbeygate Street was closed in order to resurface it with tarmac. Being a premier street in the town it had previously been laid with wooden blocks. The blocks were made of cedar wood, soaked in tar, and were about the size of a brick. They were laid edge up, and tarred over. These helped to deaden the sounds of the milkman's horse, and other tradesmen in the early hours. By now they were worn out and probably unsuitabe for heavy motor vehicles. | | 1953 | The Bury St Edmunds Borough Council finally bought the Abbey Gardens and West Front, with its sitting tenants, from the Bristol family for £7,814. The council had had the Gardens on lease since 1912, but now their future for public access was assured.
In May, 1953, a remarkable event occurred when the Augustinian order of Friars moved back to Clare Priory, having been absent since 1538. The Priory was a gift to them from the daughters of Lady May, who had wished to see the Friars return to Clare. |
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The Bury Borough Council was left a notable collection of clocks and watches in memory of John Gershom-Parkington, (1920-1941), who was killed during the war. The collection was bequeathed by his father, Frederic Gershom Parkington. By agreement with the National Trust the collection was installed in the Queen Ann house next to the Borough Offices and now known as Angel Corner. It seems to have been officially given this name in 1956. The clocks were joined by the Bury and West Suffolk Records Office. The records were there until 1973, the clocks until 1993.
The East coast was devastated by severe flooding from inundation by the sea.
Myxamatosis first arrived in Britain in Kent in 1953 and within 5 years 96% of Britain's rabbits were dead. This was of particular importance in the Breckland, where rabbit grazing had largely determined the shape of the landscape. Many open heaths would now become invaded by scrub.
All Saints church was set up to serve the Priors and Horringer Court areas in Bury.
On 19th September, 1953, the 358th (Suffolk Yeomanry) Medium Regiment, RA (TA), was granted the Freedom of the Borough of Bury St Edmunds. | | 1954 | Several towns in East Anglia had expressed a wish to expand and in January 1954 came the earliest official announcement from the London County Council of the towns they were considering for the reception of an overspill population. The towns named were Haverhill, Sudbury, Bury St Edmunds and Thetford. These towns, the LCC stated, have signified their agreement, in principle, to a policy of expansion and now experts are scrutinising the extent of population that each can take.
At Bury, the Fire Brigade was removed from its town centre cramped location in the Traverse, out to Fornham Road, where there was land for a training tower, extra garaging, and usually a quicker response to calls.
At Ixworth, the Thingoe RDC modernised its 1893 houses in Stow Road. They were given bathroom extensions and both hot and cold water systems. Thingoe RDC regained the spirit which had built these innovative homes in the first place, and in the next 20 years would build about 1,200 dwellings, with model sheltered housing schemes and extensive schemes of rural sewerage.
In December 1954 the base at RAF Tuddenham transferred to the USAF as a sub-station of Pickenham.
| | 1955 | The London County Council was promoting the idea of moving to expanding towns at the British Industries Fair in May 1955. Industries were shown the advantages of moving out of London.
The Western Trading Estate was established on 30 acres by Bury Borough Council to encourage industrial development. Today it is called Western Way. It was to be the first of several such ventures by the council around the town. The rates income expected from this 30 acre venture was needed to pay for new sewerage and other worn out infrastructure for the town. Unemployment was low in the town so the Council was careful in its selection of industries. Plans were now in train to bring Bury's population up to 40,000, based on London "Overspill" of 10,000 people.
Soon the 40 acre Eastern Way Trading Estate was started, and during 1955, Bury signed the Town Expansion Agreement with the LCC.
The Playhouse Cinema in Bury converted to show films in Cinemascope, but post war austerity had dried up the film studios, and television was becoming widespread.
Many people will remember the excitement of going for shoes at Quants in Abbeygate Street, because in 1955 they installed an X-Ray machine. The idea was that the shop assistant could tell if the shoes properly fitted on young feet by viewing them through the machine. No doubt today this would be seen as a hazard to health, but kids loved it.
Milk Bars for tea, coffee and milk shakes were in fashion and at this time Bury had a Milk Bar on the Cornhill where Dixons stands today.
A qualified librarian was first appointed by Bury Borough Council. | | 1956 | In Haverhill, the Council acquired land to the south of the town for industrial development in readiness for a town development scheme with the London County Council for the transfer of 5,000 people.
During 1956 building of the first new factories started and Polak and Schwarz said that they hoped to start production in September in their new premises off Duddery Hill. This was the beginning of what is today the vast Haverhill complex of IFF.
In 1955 Canberra bombers of XV, 44 and 57 Squadrons had arrived at RAF Honington. In 1956 these units bombed Egypt in the Suez crisis and in November 1956 7 Squadron flew Valiants from here, and in 1957 90 Squadron reformed with Valiants. | | 1957 | One hundred and eight dwellings were to be erected at Burton End, Haverhill for men with families moving with a new factory from London. This would be the first stage of the LCC part of the Parkway Estate. In the early days this was also known as the London Estate.
The Treaty of Rome set up the European Economic Community. Britain did not join in.
The Magna Carta Trust was formed under the patronage of distinguished leaders of Church and State. Today, the Mayor of St Edmundsbury remains one of the Trustees.
Work began on excavating the Abbey site by the Ministry of Works and would last until 1964. Many of the finds were removed to their headquarters in Saffron Walden. The West Front ruins, together with the inserted dwellings were still owned by the Bristol family. In 1957 they were sold to the Bury St Edmunds Borough Council, except for a small office retained by the Estate. There were ideas to turn the area into a Cathedral Close, and many people wanted to unpick the ruins and reveal the view to the site of the old High Altar.
New housing continued to be built in Bury. On May 9th, the Mayor opened the 1,000th house built on the Mildenhall Road Housing Estate. The Northumberland Methodist church and the Lancaster Hall were both opened to serve the Howard Estate area.
| | 1958 | By the late 1950's the Bury Round Table had established an annual Whit Monday Fete at Hardwick Park. The centrepiece in 1958 was the "launching" of the Russian Sputnik. Each year a celebrity was also in attendance, and the aim was to raise funds for good causes.
In July 1958, a start was made 'on the ground' to put into effect an agreement with the London County Council to expand Haverhill under the Town Development Act to 10,000 people. The "London estate", extension to Parkway, was begun.
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1958 is the year a lot of Haverhill people remember as the year of the first great flood. In fact there had been an equally big flood in 1903, but few people remembered it. After a terrible storm in June most of the High Street and Queen Street area of the town, including the Pightle, was flooded. Unfortunately it would be only ten years before the next occasion like it.
In Bury, the Cattle Market was moved westwards, away from the St Andrews Street frontage to provide car parking for the town centre. New covered pig pens were provided together with a new lorrywash. This remained the site of the livestock market until closure in December 1998. At this time, and into the early 1960's, it was still usual for some of the animals to be herded on foot up Risbygate Street to and from market.
The great churchyard was felt to need tidying up as part of the conversion of the area to a Cathedral Close. The gravestones and monuments by the Cathedral, between the West Front and the Norman Tower, were all cleared away, the railings having already gone to the war effort.
During the construction of Barons Road three Anglo-Saxon males were discovered buried just off Hardwick Lane in Bury. Finds included spearheads, a shield boss and a knife.
Thingoe RDC gained a grant of arms, with the motto "Attingo Rura", when the chairman at the time, Mr Nigel Whitwell of Pakenham, bore the cost to mark his term of office.
In 1958 the Thor intermediate range missile first arrived in the UK.
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| 1959 | A grand 10 day pageant of 'son et lumiere' was held in the Abbey Gardens to commemorate the death of St Edmund and other historical events such as the town's links to Magna Carta. The pageant marked the first celebrations of the newly formed Magna Carta Trust.
The Mayor, Monty Banks, officially launched the great scheme to extend St James's church to make it more suitable for its role as a cthedral for the Diocese. This work had been envisaged since 1914, but two world wars and economic depression had always held things back. As it was, this major phase of work would not be finished until 1970.
The cinema trade was struggling and this year the Playhouse Cinema closed down. Its site became a large Co-op General Store. The Playhouse Bar, however continued to serve the drinking public for several more years until 1975. The Odeon carried on until 1982, but by 2001 only the old Central Cinema survives, having changed first to the Abbeygate in 1959, and then to Studio one and Two in 1971.
Bury town centre lost one of its landmark shops when Henshall's Ironmongers closed its doors. Woolworths was looking to expand, and Henshalls was right next door.
In London, the LCC were still promoting the idea of moving to expanding towns. In May 1959 the customary hoardings went up around Eros to prevent vandalism on Cup Final Day and on the hoardings were posters which read:
"There is space for growing industry in expanding towns, Bletchley, Swindon, Aylesbury, Haverhill, Bury St Edmunds and Thetford. Ample labour is assured. Financial assistance possible, Modern homes for work people."
Sainsbury's built a poultry processing and packing factory in Mildenhall Road, which would employ 100 people.
At Bury, work began on the Pigeon Lane pumping station and the Fornham Park treatment works to replace the West Stow works. Plans had been drawn up, amended and discussed for sewerage improvements since 1947.
The West Suffolk Technical Institute moved from its site at the Silver Jubilee School on to its present site in Out Risbygate.
On 29th 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 (Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire).
In 1959 the Mildenhall base become a transport centre and the C124's arrived and Mildenhall became the home of the 322nd Air Division. Later the controlling unit became 513th Tactical Airlift Wing.
Mildenhall was to become the USAF's "Gateway to Europe" as a staging post for flights from the USA. Galaxies, Starlifters and C130 Hercules all flew through Mildenhall.
The American 78th Squadron had moved its F84F Thunderstreaks from Shepherd's Grove to Woodbridge in December 1958. In 1959 Shepherds' Grove became a Thor Missile Base and a flight of 82 Squadron operated them until their removal in 1963.
RAF Tuddenham also became a Thor Missile base in July 1959 when the Americans formed 107 Squadron . After this sinister period ended in July 1963 the base was sold off. |
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| During 1959 the West Suffolk County Council received its grant of arms. The cross and martlets, (house martins), derive from the arms of Edward the Confessor, to commemorate the grant of west Suffolk to the abbey. The mitres represent the abbey at Bury, and the crown and arrows represent St Edmund. | | 1960 | RAF Lakenheath became home to the USAFE 48th Fighter Wing who are still there today. In 1960 the Americans removed their nuclear capable fighters out of France and the 48th Wing moved into Lakenheath from Chaumont with F100 Super Sabres, and were reassigned from the 17th Air Force to the 3rd Air Force. Both Mildenhall and Lakenheath became Strategic Air Command bases with this move.
The London County Council had continued to relocate people outside London and Bury St Edmunds Borough Council now signed up to take 10,000 so-called "overspill" population. The Eastern Way Industrial Estate was set up on 40 acres, beginning with ABM's silos and malt-houses.
The old Technical college in Bury was absorbed into the new West Suffolk College of Further Education, which opened in 1960 and could offer day release and full time courses.
In 1960 the railway goods link to Thetford had finally been cut. More cuts were to follow to the railway network.
In Haverhill the town centre was by-passed by the completion of the Inner Relief Road, now called Ehringshausen Way.
At the beginning of 1960 another part of old Haverhill went into decline. In January of that year it was stated that the use of the cattle market was declining. For the first time ever there was no fat stock sale at Christmas. The market was officially closed in February. | | 1961 | In August 1961 the Berlin Wall was built and stood for 28 years.
Buses leaving the Bus Station in Bury St Edmunds were finally banned from driving through the Buttermarket on market days, to avoid further damage to the portico of the Suffolk Hotel.
Bury's rail link to Long Melford and Sudbury was closed down to passenger traffic. Goods traffic followed in a year or two. Road haulage had destroyed railway traffic as the road network was improved. As a final insult to rail, the line of the cuttings for this railway track would be used to provide part of a new trunk road and bypass for Bury by 1973.
The two County Territorial Army Units were merged to form the 308 (Suffolk and Norfolk Yeomanry) Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, (TA).
A new porch was completed on the Cathedral of St James, at its west end, but on the north side. |
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West Suffolk's Expanding Towns
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By 1961 it was general policy in West Suffolk to use London overspill and town expansion to revitalise the local infrastructure. From 1961 to 1971 West Suffolk became one of the fastest growing areas of the country. Haverhill and Bury were to grow by 10,000 each but lesser town expansion was planned for Mildenhall, Brandon, Newmarket, Sudbury and Hadleigh. New factories were backed up by large scale council house building projects. This would stimulate private house building and renovations of older properties. Ipswich and East Suffolk near the coast hardly grew at all during the 1960's.
Plans were continuing for the Howard estate to begin construction.
At Western Way industrial area in Bury, the foundation stone was laid at the Barber Green factory. This manufacturer of road building machines was to become a major industry in the town for the next two decades.
However, farming was still the largest single economic unit in Suffolk in 1961. By 1981 it would be smaller than other sectors of employment.
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Main Sewer - Abbey Gardens
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In Bury a major project was taking place to replace the main sewerage system for the town. Trunk sewers up to 4 feet in diameter were installed through the town and out to Fornham Park. As they worked by gravity they tended to follow the bottom of the river valleys of the Linnet and Lark as far as was practical. They went through the Abbey Gardens and along Fornham Road, and the pipes were often set into deep trenches.
The 4th Suffolk (TA) unit was amalgamated with 1st Cambridgeshire to become 1st Battalion the Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Regiment. This regiment only lasted until it was disbanded in 1967. The 358th Suffolk Yeomanry was amalgamated with the Norfolk Yeomanry to form 308 (Suffolk and Norfolk Yeomanry) Field Regiment, RA (TA). Along with the regular army, the TA was being cut back.
In Haverhill the town centre improvements got under way when much of Peas Hill was demolished, the 1,000th tenants were given keys to their new homes and the population was 5,200.
At RAF Stradishall Javelin 2's and 6's had been flown by 89 and 85 Squadron up to 1959. In 1958 Hunter 6's arrived with Number 1 and Number 54 Squadron and these planes stayed until 1961. In December 1961 Stradishall became a Training Command with Number 1 Air Navigation School with Varsities and Meteors, then Dominies until August 1970.
| | 1962 | The Fornham Park treatment works was opened and the West Stow sewage farm was de-commissioned. A pumping station was installed in Pigeon Lane to terminate the sewer and pump waste up to the new works.
The old settling beds at West Stow were to become used as a landfill site for rubbish from Bury St Edmunds to replace tipping at the Haberden and Mount Road. By 1962 most West Suffolk villages had piped water, and many parishes had mains drainage. Work continued throughout the 1960's.
In Haverhill the Colne Valley Railway Line was finally closed down for goods traffic, leaving the Stour Valley line to continue until 1967. Haverhill South had not seen passenger traffic since 1924.
It was the height of the Cold War, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was probably the height of this period of fearfullness of Nuclear War. West Suffolk people knew that Honington had its giant V-Bombers, and that the Americans had nuclear weapons at Lakenheath. It was always felt that our area would be hit first, in the event of Foreign attack.
ABM finished building their new Maltings at Eastern Way.
Winter 1962 saw a Big Freeze which lasted for months. The weather had been getting worse since about 1950, and the winter of 1962/63 turned into the coldest since 1740. Although never so bad, this cooler time lasted into the 1970's. | | 1963 | February 1963 was the coldest February for 82 years. Standing water was frozen for some 10 weeks, and the populations of Herons, Bitterns and Kingfishers were severely affected.
James Oakes' diaries had been sold to a dealer in 1955, following its discovery in the library at Nowton Court, the family home. The diaries came on the market in 1963, and the Borough Archivist, Martin Statham, urged the Bury St Edmunds Borough Council to buy them, which they did. These turned out to contain a massive amount of detail of life in Bury from 1778 to 1827, and were eventually published in 1990.
The Angel Hotel in Bury was expanded when it took over the adjacent St Edmund's Hotel. The Midland Bank took over Whipps Fishmongers who were next door at the top of Abbeygate Street.
In 1963 the First East Anglian Regiment was granted the Honorary Freedom of the Borough of Bury St Edmunds. Its successor is the Royal Anglian Regiment, and the First (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk) Battalion retains this honour today.
Thingoe RDC's water undertaking had by now supplied piped water into all of its parishes since the war, and was making bulk supplies to five neighbouring authorities. On November 1st, the whole lot was transferred to the West Suffolk Water Board.
In March the roads and services were being constructed for the Clements Estate in Haverhill and the tender was awarded for the first 142 houses. Sainsburys were building an extension to Blunts Hall and the old peoples' bungalows were completed in Withersfield Road by April that year.
In May 1963, the new Haverhill sewage works was opened by Louis Goodman, Assistant Secretary at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. It was built with expansion in mind and could be extended to cope with a population of 17,500.
The Beeching report on the railway network was published. It acknowledged the falling demand for passenger traffic and the growth of the road freight network. Many rail line closures would follow in an attempt to keep a viable network going.
The Thor missile base at Shepherd's Grove was closed down in 1963. The site then changed to agriculture with an industrial estate and extensive use for housing. Similarly the missile base at Tuddenham was closed in July and sold off.
| | 1964 | IBM released its System 360 commercial range of computers including innovations such as upgradeability and magnetic tape drives.
In Bury the Borough Council relinquished one of its most important functions when, on 1st April, 1964, all of its Water Supply Undertaking was transferred to the West Suffolk Water Board. This included the Water Pumping Station and borehole in Kings Road, the West Road Watertower, and all the associated staff. It retained its sewerage function until 1974.
Bury Gasworks would also close down production in 1962, but the gasholders remained as part of the grid network.
Early in 1964 the Haverhill Urban District Council took a special census which showed that Haverhill's population was then 7,239. By March 1964, 575 houses had been erected and there were a further 238 under construction. Some 26 new factories had also been built under the town expansion scheme.
West Suffolk Police built new headquarters in Raingate Street in Bury, as part of the County building complex on that site. The old Police Station in St John's Street was now available for redevelopment.
Not far away in Westgate Street a long running public battle to raise interest and funds was won when the Theatre Royal was triumphantly re-opened as a living theatre. Eleven years later the brewery would lease it to the National Trust on a 999 year lease. Seating was now halved to only 350 to comply with modern requirements, but this has made it hard to remain financially viable at all times.
The County School for Girls had stood in Northgate Street since 1907, when it was considered the most up to date in West Suffolk. The school now moved to brand new premises in Tollgate Lane. For many years the girls had walked to this new site to make use of the playing fields which the education authority had acquired there. These long walks now became unnecessary.
The school premises in Northgate Street gradually became used as an annexe to the West Suffolk College until 1988.
The Public Libraries and Museums Act required libraries to each certain standards. Pictures, records and films could be lent. These standards were laid down by a Libraries Working Party and included one member of staff for every 2,500 population and the purchase of 7,200 books each year as a minimum.
On 1st September 1964, the East Anglian Regiment became the Royal Anglian Regiment, and the Suffolks made up the 1st Battalion. The Depot remained at Bury, but cutbacks were the order of the day.
During the Mid 1960's Bury's Northern Way Industrial Estate was laid out on 30 acres of land in the area of Thingoe RDC.
By 1964 the extensive excavations of the Abbey of St Edmund were brought to a close. The undergrowth had been removed, the ruins stabilised and the area redisplayed to the public. The future of the dwellings built into the West Front remains continued to be the subject of hot debate. Many academics wanted these houses unpicked to reveal the medieval remains, but several families still lived there, as tenants of the council. | | 1965 | On 1st April, 1965, the London County Council ceased to exist and was replaced by the Greater London Council under the terms of the London Government Act of 1963. All the LCC town development agreements were taken over by the GLC.
The Theatre Royal re-opened after having been fully restored from its sad fate as a barrel store since 1925. |
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Dr Stanley West was contracted for three months a year to undertake excavations at West Stow on behalf of, and funded by the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works. These continued in the summers up to 1972. It was in this period that the major part of the settlement was explored.
A large number of coins and two revolvers were stolen from the Moyses Hall Museum. The £880 insurance money was used to buy replacements. The collection now had one coin from every reign from Edward the Confessor (1042) to Queen Elizabeth II except three unobtainable at the time.
The Borough Council applied to the Department of Education and Science for the right to keep its library powers. It reasoned that it provided a better service than the County library and it needed to spend less to reach the standards of the Libraries Working Party. Also the Ministry of Housing and Local Government had agreed to the growth of the town to 40,000 within 10 years, and permission was being sought to reach 60,000 under the London overspill arrangements. At this time the Borough Librarian also ran the Citizens Advice Bureau, and the estimated population was 22,270.
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At this time there was a fete held every year in the grounds of Hardwick Manor. Every year a popular celebrity would attend, and in 1965 Tom Jones, the singer, was welcomed. He remains a popular singer in 2002.
Father Bryan Houghton of St Edmunds Catholic Church in Bury kindled a renewal of interest in the relics at Arundel, which he believed were the remains of St Edmund. He tried to have the remains returned to Bury St Edmunds. He did receive three teeth from the Basilica of St Sernin in Toulouse, but never succeeded in establishing widespread acceptance of his claims in Bury, and so the remains rest at Arundel. In 1970 he published a book about his attempts to prove his theories.
From 1965 to 1969 the RAF base at Honington was updated to fly the Buccaneer attack Squadrons of Strike Command with 12 Squadron and the Navy's 809 Squadron. Previously Honington had been an important V-bomber base occupied by 199 Squadron with Valiants and Canberras equipped for electronic warfare. Numbers 55 and 57 Squadrons were formed after 1959 to fly the newer Victors, but left for Marham in 1966. The era of the 'V - Bomber' was now coming to a close. | | 1966 | The Chalkstone Housing Estate was started by the GLC. All of the town development houses in Haverhill before 1974 were designed, financed and built directly by the London County Council and then by the Greater London Council after 1965. The population in 1966 was estimated at 9,000, a growth of 2,000 in two years. |
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The last Council in the Guildhall
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In Bury, the Borough Offices extension was opened and it included a new Council Chamber. In December the Bury St Edmunds Council met for the last time in the Guildhall. It had been used for meetings of the Corporation since 1606. The offices in the Town Hall were also now vacant, and plans were laid to make it into an art gallery.
On 3rd January 1966 the Soviet spacecraft Luna IX made the first controlled landing on the Moon by a man-made object and sent back the first television pictures from the Moon's surface. | | 1967 | The new amalgamated Suffolk Constabulary came into being and the split between east and west Suffolk policing ended. It had broken apart in 1899.
The Stour Valley line of the Great Eastern Railway now part of British Railways, was closed down. The last train had left Haverhill forever. | | 1968 | Thingoe RDC moved its offices from 1, Northgate Street, to 118a Northgate Street, where it had meeting rooms, offices, council chamber and car parking. Its functions had expanded out of all recognition since the war, and its programe of sewerage and housing was proceeding apace.
In Bury St Edmunds, new market bye-laws were introduced.
Since 1939 the agricultural industry in Suffolk had got more prosperous. Cheap food was heavily subsidised by the state, and the industry became increasingly profitable by mechanisation and economies of scale. Small farms were dying out. Arable farming replaced animal rearing. Horses had virtually disappeared in the 1960's, replaced by tractors. In 1958 there had still been 4000 working horses in Suffolk, but in 10 years they were all gone.
In August 1968 the Warsaw Pact countries, mainly the USSR, invaded Czechoslovakia. |
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Bury had last had severe flooding in 1947, but in September 1968, there was a storm of tropical intensity. Some 2.7 inches of rain fell in 24 hours, and much of Southern Britain was under water. Floods overwhelmed the Butts, and water ran down Raingate Street. The council had to send out officers to rescue stranded livestock from flooded fields. Residents in Eastgate Street were stranded, and the army brought in amphibious vehicles to help police and firemen to rescue them. Boats, dinghies and rafts replaced cars on many flooded streets. Water lay along Etna Road and flooded Mulley's coach garage. The Dovecote in the Abbey Gardens was under water, as was practically everwhere along the River Lark through the town. Out of town, Sicklesmere was under water and only the tallest lorries could get through the flood.
Ten years after the great Haverhill floods of 1958, despite new drainage levies, floods also occurred there again in mid September 1968. They were just as bad here as in Bury, and in many ways the effects were greater because of the nature of the town at the foot of the valley. | | 1969 | On 21st July Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the surface of the Moon.
Bury St Edmunds Borough Council installed its first computer, an NCR 500 based on punched paper tape input and magnetic stripe ledger cards as backing store. The ledger cards were simultaneously updated electronically and information printed on the front of the card. This system, known as a "visible records" computer, mirrored the use of accounting machines and had 400 words of magnetic core memory. This machine was used for the financial records of the council. It would be extended in use to payroll, the rates system, and to the accounting for council house rents over the next few years. It was programmed by members of the Borough Treasurer's Department in Machine Code, where hardware instructions were represented by a three digit code, and memory was addressed in four planes of 100 words each.
The Depot of the Royal Anglian Regiment in Risbygate Street, Bury St Edmunds, finally closed when its depot functions under Lt Colonel Deller were moved to Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire. By now all but the Keep and front walls had been demolished. Also to close was the Police Station in St Johns Street in Bury. A fine new Police HQ was opened in Raingate Street, next to the Shire Hall. |
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Building underpass at Beetons Footpath
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| 1970 | In January, part of Bury's rural past disappeared when the road known as Western Way was joined to Tollgate Lane by way of an underbridge which was officially opened to replace the old level crossing. For the first time, vehicles could traverse under the railway line, linking the factories in Western Way with the new Howard Estate, without needing to go a very long way round. Only ten years before, the walk from the Greengage pub to the Barracks had been along a dusty country lane called Beetons Footpath, flanked by blackberry bushes and wheat fields, and small boys had thrilled to the sight of trains running over their pennies, placed on the line at the level crossing.
At the College in Bury, the new Engineering Training Centre was set up.
The architect Stephen Dykes Bower completed work on a new choir for the Cathedral church of St James for the new diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. The Quire and Crossing were consecrated in September, and as the project had been started in 1959, and ran through a period of inflation, it left the cathedral in debt. There was not enough money to build a tower, but provision was made for one to be added later.
Work was completed on converting the Bury Corn Exchange into a two storey building. The running costs of the building as a Corn Exchange on Wednesdays and a public hall for the rest of the week, far outstretched the income that it generated. The solution was to put in shops on the newly created ground floor and run the Corn Market and dances and events upstairs. The shop rents would offset most of the the losses on the public part of the premises.
In July 1970, the Pageant entitled "Edmund of Anglia" was presented in the Abbey Gardens from the 6th to the 25th of that month. It was written by Olga ironside Wood to celebrate the 1100th anniversary the death of St Edmund in 870. Some £6,000 was given by the Borough Council, and another £4,000 raised from commercial and personal sponsorship.
In the same year Father Bryan Houghton produced his book entitled "Saint Edmund - King and Martyr". His book revolved around the thesis that the remains of St Edmund had been taken to France in July 1217, and had ended up in the Basilica of St Sernin at Toulouse. In 1901 these relics were brought to England, but rejected as authentic, and were lodged at Arundel. In 1964 and 1965 Father Houghton had tried to again have them authenticated and brought to Bury St Edmunds. The book records how he failed to convince others that this should be done.
In August, 1970, the RAF training base at Stradishall, for Air Navigation, was closed down.
| | 1971 | In February decimal coinage was introduced to Britain, replacing pounds, shillings and pence. For those of you not around in the days of LSD, there were 12 pennies in a shilling, and 20 shillings in a pound. One pound was therefore made up of 240 pence, and so the conversion rate to decimal was that one new penny equalled 2.4 old pence. A guinea was one pound and one shilling, but was by now unused except to buy expensive race horses or suits from up market tailors. There was no coin or note for a guinea. A crown was 5 shillings and half a crown was 2 shillings and sixpence. The old florin was worth two shillings, and strangely enough had been introduced in Victorian times as the beginnings of a changeover to decimal currency. At one - tenth of a pound, this coin survived as the ten pence piece after 1971.
The Department of the Environment was set up by merging the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and two other Ministries, one being the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works.
County Councils had to set up a Social Services Department in 1971. Work was taken from the old Health and Welfare Department and the Children's Department of West Suffolk County Council.
At Bury the population was now 26,000 and its target of 40,000 was now looking unlikely. Nevertheless, the census confirmed that in percentage terms, West Suffolk was the fastest growing county in the country at this time.
Number 41 Cornhill was bought by Bury Borough Council as an extension to Moyses Hall Museum for £20,000. Completion of the contract was due in March 1972.
The Abbeygate Cinema in Hatter Street changed its name to Studio One and Two, showing two programmes simultaneously to the smaller audiences that the cinema was now attracting.
Comprehensive education arrived in Bury with the abolition of the King Edward VI Grammar School and the Silver Jubilee Secondary Modern Schools. The Vinefields premises of the Grammar School became the St James Middle School, and the King Edward VI Upper School was set up as a co-educational establishment on the site of the Jubilee Schools. Because of the new three tier system, new middle schools were needed. The County Grammar School for Girls became the co-educational County Upper School. The old single sex grammar school system, which divided children by ability was now dead.
St Louis Convent School became a state run Catholic School.
The oldest and most rare of the Grammar School's books and records were now deposited in the Cambridge University Library, including the Psalter which had survived from the Abbey of St Edmund.
Despite all this change John Betjeman called Bury "The most perfect and least spoiled English town."
Nevertheless, a group of concerned citizens decided to set up the Bury Society, to act as a watchdog over any possible excessive zeal in redevelopment of the old features of the town.
When the West Suffolk County Council approved the ultimate expansion of Haverhill from 18,500 to 30,000 they - with the full approval of the Haverhill Council - commissioned the eminent architect and planner, Sir Frederick Gibberd, to prepare a master plan, and this was published in 1971.
At Haverhill the West Suffolk County Council opened an indoor sports centre.
The new 20 acre Country Park at Clare won a silver medal for safeguarding the Clare Castle ruins and adapting the old railway station.
By this time all but 4% of Suffolk homes had mains drainage and almost all had piped water. About 11% still had no hot water system.
| | 1972 | In January the Haverhill Echo reported that Clare Market was in difficulties. After 13 weeks, the man who revived it, Mr Glazer of Brockley was losing money and was withdrawing. Clare Parish Council were considering whether to take it over.
The excavations were wound up at West Stow but Stanley West had the idea of launching a practical archaeology project based upon actually rebuilding some of the dwellings. |
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In the same year a new development of homes at Westgarth Gardens in Bury revealed a major early pagan Anglo-Saxon cemetery of 67 graves. There were some exciting finds, including a german made glass beaker of fine quality.
In May the Eastern Road Construction Unit started work on the construction of the Bury St Edmunds By-Pass. Since 1969 it had taken over the design work from the county council once the Trunk Road A45 had been designated a Strategy Route by the Department of the Environment.
In the City, the FT 30 share index reached 543, the highest it had ever been, following a two year boom in share prices. Following the peaks of May, Stock markets experienced a decline throughout the rest of the year, which would continue into 1974.
At the Old Town Hall the conversion work from council offices was completed. During 1971 it had been decided to revert its name to the Market Cross. The ground floor was turned into the offices of a Building Society and the first floor became an Art Gallery run by the Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery Trust.
In Bury St John's Church School closed in St Johns Street, and the building became a Church Hall.
The new Local Government Bill included plans to move Haverhill, the Thurlows, Bradleys, Wrattings, Kedington, Barnardiston and Withersfield into Cambridgeshire. The Local Government Act which finally emerged in 1972 left them in Suffolk.
Planning permission was sought to turn the old RAF Stradishall base into a prison for 500 men and detention centre for 200 youths. However, in September the site was taken over for use as a Resettlement Centre for Asian refugees who had been expelled from Uganda by its ruler, Idi Amin. A total of 3,169 refugees passed through Stradishall in the seven months it served as a Resettlement Centre. This emergency was largely borne by local authority health staff, many of whom sometimes had to work round the clock.
RAF Honington received the Freedom of the Borough of Bury St Edmunds in 1972 recognising and fostering the close associations with the town since 1937 which had been first recognised when the town "adopted" the station in 1947.
Plans for a 2,000 acre reservoir at Great Bradley were being considered.
Bury's engineering heritage took a severe blow in 1972 when the Robert Boby works in St Andrews Street was finally closed down. It had been owned by Vickers since 1927, and was still the biggest factory in Bury. Some 270 men were put out of work, but many Bury people still remember friends or relatives who worked there. Many local men did engineering apprenticeships at Boby's, even if they now live far away.
The old tradition of free school milk ended in 1972, except for infants. | | 1973 | Britain joined the EEC, some sixteen years after it was set up.
Inflation continued to climb in these first years of the 70's fuelled by international oil price rises. This led to higher wage demands and higher interest rates. During August, rates for money borrowed by local authorities for short term purposes reached 17%. By December even long term rates had peaked at 13% a year.
The Resettlement of Ugandan Asians project at Stradishall was successfully closed down in March 1973, after seven short but hectic months. Over 3,000 people were re-located.
In April, Purchase Tax and Selective Employment Taxes were abolished, but the Value Added Tax was brought in to the consternation of many businesses which had to act as unpaid tax accountants to collect it.
In 1973, the Yom Kippur war added to world uncertainties, and put further stress on oil supplies. Oil prices had quadrupled, industrial unrest was widespread, and confidence was falling. Share prices continued to decline.
A unique programme of reconstructions of Anglo Saxon dwellings was started at West Stow with the aid of a group of Cambridge students enrolled and directed by Stanley West.
The Bury and West Suffolk Records Office moved out of Angel Corner and into a fine new building opposite the Shire Hall in Bury. |
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Bypass central interchange 1976
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The Bury St Edmunds bypass, with its new dual carriageways, was opened as part of the A45 improvements on 7th December 1973. It was designed with three access points close to the town to serve as relief from traffic for the historic core. The picture shows the central interchange which joins the new roundabout in Northgate Street on the site of the old North Gate. At Tollgate Lane the new road crossed over it at the same point as the recently built underpass to the railway line. The link from Northgate roundabout to the By pass was built by the County Council as Phase two of the scheme to relieve the town centre of cross town traffic. Phase one of this urban Principal Road scheme came to be called Cullum Road. It linked Southgate Green to the Butts corner on Westgate Street across the Butts water meadows.
Plans were made for the development of the Moreton Hall area with 140 acres of housing, 116 acres for industry and 144 acres of landscaping. At first, much of the housing was designated as Council Houses, but this was never to materialise as circumstances would change so much in the following decade. London was no longer to continue exporting its population, and the finances of council housing would become less economic.
In the Autumn the college of further education at Bury opened its Motor Vehicle Training Centre. The Priory School was opened in Bury for 100 children with special needs.
During 1973 the Bury Sugar Beet Factory became the largest in Europe when two new silos were built.
| | 1974 | In January it looked like a full scale miners strike was coming and the FT 30 index was down to 301, from its May 1972 height of 534.
The Chequers pub in Risbygate Street closed in January so that it could be demolished to make way for the Parkway Road which would link Westgate Street and the newly finished Cullum Road to Risbygate Street and on to Tayfen Road. Meanwhile, in Kings Road, the Cricketers Inn was closed and demolished as part of the Kings Road/ Parkway roundabout.
In the opening three months of the year Haverhill UDC let its last housing contract to build 306 dwellings on the Chalkstone Estate. All the streets were named after birds. The Council also let a contract for a new swimming pool to be added to the existing indoor sports centre built by West Suffolk County Council. All of these projects would be taken over and completed by St Edmundsbury Borough Council on 1st April to be finished off over the next three years.
In March a Labour government came to power as the economy was drastically slowing down.
Under the Local Government Act 1972 all existing local authorities, including Haverhill UDC, were swept away on April 1st. The Borough of Bury St Edmunds and the office of Recorder of Bury St Edmunds, were abolished. It was replaced by St Edmundsbury District Council which was made up of the areas of the Borough of Bury St Edmunds, the Urban District of Haverhill, and the two Rural Districts of Clare and Thingoe. There were to be 44 elected Councillors but the post of Alderman was abolished. The town of Bury St Edmunds was divided into 9 wards with 17 Councillors. Haverhill was divided into 5 wards with 8 Councillors, and 19 rural wards were set up with 1 Councillor to each ward. On 15th May the Queen granted a Charter bestowing Borough status on the new district. This allowed the office of Mayor to continue. This status perpetuated the right to have a sword and maces and to appoint "local officers of dignity" - sword and mace bearers, and the mayoral traditions continue to this day throughout the enlarged Borough of St Edmundsbury.
The new Council took over responsibility for the Bury markets, and the provision market held in Haverhill on a Friday and Saturday. There was a market held in Clare, but this was run by the Parish Council, and continues to be under their control today. It lost the power to run a library and this was transferred to the County Council. It no longer met the expenses of the Coroner's Court.
Under the Water Act 1973, the towns also lost control of the sewage works they owned. The expensive new works at Fornham Park, serving the people of Bury St Edmunds, was transferred to the Anglian Water Authority, together with the outstanding loan debt and all liabilities and assets. Haverhill's sewage works off Coupals Road was also transferred to the Anglian Water Authority. The West Suffolk Water Board was also abolished and its water works in Kings Road and the water tower in West Road, all passed to Anglian Water.
The West Suffolk Burial Board was abolished and the powers and duties of burial and cremation passed to the new district and borough councils. The maintenance and upkeep of the Kings Road cemetery in Bury passed to St Edmundsbury Council. At Haverhill, the Urban District Council already ran its own cemetery.
Refuse collection remained a district council function, but disposal of it was removed from them and given to County Councils. This put the future of the West Stow refuse disposal tip and adjacent Anglo-Saxon reconstructions into doubt.
For the first time the eastern boundary of the old Liberty of St Edmund was abandoned. St Edmundsbury was detached from Long Melford and Sudbury which went to Babergh District Council and Thedwastre went to Mid Suffolk D C.
Suffolk County Council was also created on 1st April by the merging of East Suffolk and West Suffolk County Councils. One consequence of this was the establishment of the Suffolk Archaeological Unit with Stanley West in charge. Raingate Street had held the County Library until 1974, but this building was now used for the new Bury Branch of the Suffolk County Records Office, the Borough having now lost any involvement in the archives. The Borough Library in the Cornhill now became the County Library, for town and surrounds, as the Borough also lost the its library powers. The library would stay here until 1983. |
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The West Suffolk County Council would not go down without leaving its own memorial. In town it had Elizabeth Frink design and cast a statue of St Edmund which stands in the churchyard by the Cathedral. At first it was despised, when erected in 1976, but is now popular with the town and tourists alike. On Barton Hill the WSCC purchased land and planted an oak grove.
The Suffolk Area Health Authority also came into being on 1st April, 1974, and all the work of the West Suffolk and East Suffolk Health Departments was transferred to it, together with six other authorities with former health powers.
Also in 1974 the new West Suffolk Hospital was opened in Hardwick Lane, Bury St Edmunds, and an extension was completed at Moyses Hall Museum. The old hospital in Kings Road was soon abandoned, and its patients moved to the modern splendour of Hardwick.
Benwell Fireworks took over the Wizard fireworks factory at Chedburgh.
Despite all the administrative change, Bury's growth was still driven forward by building on the Nowton Estate. The Southgate Church and Community Centre were set up in joint premises. The church was run on ecumenical lines. Just out of town, the girls school at Hengrave Hall closed and the estate was converted into an Ecumenical Retreat and Conference Centre.
By June, the FT 30 index had fallen 53% since May 1972, further even than the London Stock Market had fallen from 1929 to 1932. By August the Bear Market had dropped to below 200, and still things got worse. Another General Election in October confirmed the Labour Party in office. From 1972 to 1974 world stock markets had also been in decline. Wall Street lost 48% of its value over 21 months. Prices did not regain old levels for another ten years. There was also an oil crisis as oil producing countries cut production to force up prices. There was a surge in inflation and very high interest rates. Long bond yields reached 17%. Secondary banks were reaching a financial crisis in some cases where injudicious loans had been made. | | 1975 | In January the London Stock market's FT 30 index reached rock bottom at 146. Things now got no worse, but it would take 10 years for shares to regain their 1972 price levels. The year 1974 had been worse for shares than 1929, but government's now knew rather better than in the 1930's how to respond to depressed stock markets, so the economic and social aftermath was nowhere near as bad.
A new coat of arms was approved for St Edmundsbury following the grant of the right to Borough status under the 1972 Act.
The Bury St Edmunds Sports and Leisure Centre was opened in Beetons Way by Sir Alf Ramsey. It had been commissioned by the old Borough council on land owned by the county council, and both councils had worked together to achieve it. Upon opening it was managed by the new St Edmundsbury Borough Council. Its heated indoor swimming pool replaced the old open air pool off Prospect Row, behind Kings Road in the old Playfields, and this was then demolished.
In those heady days of expansion, the town maps of Bury and Haverhill were committed to grow to 40,000 and 30,000 respectively.
The Borough Council purchased the remainder of the Victory Ground sports field from Greene King to avoid it being sold off for housing.
Marlows Builders Merchants finally gave up their premises in Churchgate Street, which they had occupied since 1925. The business moved out to fine new premises in Hollow Road.
The Playhouse Bar, the only remnant of the old cinema of the same name in Bury, finally closed. The Odeon Cinema was renamed as the Focus Cinema, but cinema-going was falling in popularity at this time. |
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In 1975, the Bury born artist Sybil Andrews, now living in Canada, completed her great work, The Banner of St Edmund. It is hand embroidered in silks on linen, and was first conceived in 1930. Today this banner hangs in the Treasury of the St James Cathedral in Bury.
In 1975 there was stagflation and a shortage of oil, but the stock market rebounded 73% in a period of 25 days, following a falling, or Bear , market lasting 3 years. The weather was extremely dry in 1975, and ,in fact, would herald a severe two year drought.
The MITS Altair computer was launched, arguably the first personal computer. It ran on the Intel 8080 micro-processor. | | 1976 | The West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village Trust was formally established to manage the site and employ the necessary staff to run the reconstruction of an Anglo-Saxon village.
Haverhill Golf Course was opened as a nine hole municipal course.
In 1976 KC135 Tanker operations moved to Mildenhall from Torrejon in Spain. After the dry year of 1975, Summer 1976 had a heatwave and drought lasting for over 3 months with temperatures around 35°C. It was the hottest summer for 300 years, and one million people were put on standpipes. Fires in crops caused losses of £500 million.
Continued high inflation led the government to call for restraint in wage demands. In 1976 Stage one of the government's restrictions were imposed. Workers could only have a £6 a week increase.
The Apple computer was launched based on a totally different, but much cheaper microprocessor than the Altair, the MOS Technologies 6502. These two different processors led to two separate strands of development of desktop computers. | | 1977 | In Haverhill, the Sainsbury's store was opened at Jubilee Walk together with the bus station and Brook Service Road car park. The Sainsbury's store is now occupied by Leo's.
A Council contract for 264 dwellings at Chimswell Estate was substantially completed having taken about 3 years, as was a contract for 306 dwellings at Chalkstone. Wratting Road acquired its footbridge overhead.
The old RAF base at Stradishall had attained some fame during 1972 as a transit camp for Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin. In July 1977 Stradishall base became Highpoint Prison and it has been extended and improved as a prison ever since.
But town expansion plans had already begun to falter. Many newly built Council houses in Bury and Haverhill could not find tenants.
At Bury, Tim Brinton's opened at Moreton Hall, one of the first businesses to move into the new commercial area there. Roads and sewers were now being laid prior to the housing developers moving in.
Stage two of the government's wages policy was in force for 5% or £208, whichever was the lowest. Not surprisingly this was only really enforceable in the public sector, where the government had control of the purse strings. | | 1978 | The Bury Town Football Club was removed from the playfields off Kings Road to the Ram Meadow site to allow the new Parkway road to be built to link Cullum Road to Risbygate Street.
The Traverse, in Bury, was repaved, and trees planted to improve it. The work took two years and it was officially opened to commemorate the Queen's Silver Jubilee.
Some of the buildings on the Robert Boby site were being sold off, and one was dismantled carefully this year. It would eventually find its way to the Rural Life Museum at Stowmarket in 1982, and in 1984, it was rebuilt to house a display of rural industry and crafts.
Westbourne Court sheltered accommodation was completed on Wratting Road but only sporadic new council house building would take place after this date in Haverhill until a final contract was let in 1990. The Council sold 5 acres of land at Chalkstone Estate to the Jephson Housing Association to build 96 homes.
Local Government pay was increased by 9.9%, a massive increase by the standards of 2002, but nowhere near enough to compensate for high inflation and the falling behind of public sector pay following the Pay Restraint policy of the last two years. | | 1979 | In February a contract to modify 150 council houses to be suitable for letting to USAFE service personnel was almost complete. These were part of the excess homes built for town development purposes which had not been let. They would be leased on annual terms to the USAFE, who required a fully installed kitchen with cookers and fridges to American standards.
Mains water finally arrived at Cattishall hamlet when the council requisitioned the water main from Anglian Water to serve 5 properties. The local well water had become unfit for further use. Cattishall had been well known in medieval times as the site of the King's court outside the Banleuca of the abbey at Bury.
At West Stow the old rubbish tip was landscaped and the Country Park was opened to the public in June. Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first woman Prime Minister. |
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St Edmundsbury Borough Council was starting to sell off much of its land at Moreton Hall for private development. The land had been acquired under Town Development powers and by agreement with the GLC. It received Expanding Towns subsidy on the debt charges for ten years on any houses built and let under this agreement. It had become evident that the supply of new people sent from London under the agreement had dried up. By September the council learned that it was now official GLC policy that no further nominations would be made by the GLC to Bury St Edmunds. The council cancelled its own plans for a contract to build 74 council dwellings at Moreton Hall. It decided to lay out the roads and sewers and to sell off the fully serviced parcels of land to developers. There would be no council housing ever built at Moreton Hall.
One of the last major greenfield council house building projects was completed in Bury, with 57 new dwellings erected on the Howard Estate at Wollaston Close. The distinctive 'Coppertop' houses in parts of the Mildenhall and Howard estates were re-roofed using conventional tiling.
Along the Mildenhall Road the Haywards Pickle Factory was built. It could provide some 280 jobs. It was built on land which had been damp grazing for cattle. The Lapwings and frogs were displaced by commerce.
The old Territorial Army Depot in Kings Road was bought by the Council and by 1983 opened as the Council's vehicle maintenance depot.
Most of St Mary's Geriatric Hospital was demolished, and its inhabitants moved to the new West Suffolk Hospital off Hardwick Lane. St Mary's had been the old Thingoe Workhouse, and was still remembered as the workhouse by the older generation. Much of the old hospital site now became housing.
The Bank of England's minimum lending rate rose from 14% to 17%, and mortgage rates rose from 12.5% to 15%. High inflation caused high pay demands to continue. Local Government workers won a 9.4% pay rise in July, together with a promise to refer their case to a Comparability Study, following several years of pay restraint in the public sector. The winter of 1979 was to become known as the Winter of Discontent as public sector workers protested against government wage restraint, and the slowness of the enquiry into their pay. Prime Minister Callaghan had tried to again restrict pay increases to 5% in the public Sector.
By the end of this year it was estimated that 29.5 million days had been lost to industrial action during the year. In 1979, the world's first spreadsheet, called VISICALC, was launched on the Apple II. Suddenly the PC acquired a business raison d'être.
In December 1979 Russia invaded Afghanistan leading to further NATO modernisation. | | 1980 | In January the Water, ambulances, sewerage workers, and refuse collectors were on strike nationwide. The winter of discontent was becoming serious. Eventually a Comparability Study resulted in special increases of 14% backdated to 1st January, 1980. In July the pay wrangles continued and local government pay was taken to arbitration resulting in another award of 13% as from that date.
The year began with the Bank of England's minimum lending rate at 17%. In July, it was cut to 16% and by December to 14%. Things had improved, but these levels were still prohibitive.
On March 19th, the Bury Sports and Leisure Centre burnt down.
In April, the offices of the Bury Free Press in Kings Road, in Bury, were also burnt down. The cause was arson. Many of the Papers archives and files were lost, and the office did not re-open until October 1982.
Thirty eight new flats were built at the Northgate Lodge sheltered accommodation. | | 1981 | Lands Removals and Furnishings left their Churchgate Street premises which they occupied since 1905.
Gravel extraction ceased within the West Stow Country Park area.
On September 21st the Bury Sports Centre was reopened on the same site following the fire eighteen months before.
Forty one council dwellings were built at Beaumont Close, on the Priors Estate to replace the old pre-fabs. Cornwallis Court was opened on the old hospital site in Hospital Road.
The first F16's arrived in Britain in 1981 and Ground Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCMs) were deployed throughout the 1980's to counter the Soviet SS20 missile with its 3,000 mile range.
Nearly the whole of December saw thick snow over Suffolk. The road from Haverhill to Bury was sometimes impassable.
By the end of 1981 the minimum lending rate had climbed to 15.5%, been renamed as the Base Rate and reduced again to 14.5%. Mortgage rates were 15% but over the next few years they would slowly fall from these levels.
IBM announced that it was launching a personal computer using an Intel 8088 processor running at 4.77MHz and 16K RAM for £786. The hardware and its MS-DOS operating system were largely out dated even by the standards of 1981 but the sheer size and reputation of IBM ensured that this rapidly became a world wide standard. | | 1982 | In January it snowed again in Suffolk but the two weeks it lasted was much less trouble than the previous December.
In Bury the old Odeon Cinema, called the Focus in 1975, was finally closed for good. Its fate would be to suffer demolition in 1983 to make way for the Cornhill Walk shopping centre. Bury now had only one cinema left in Hatter Street.
Rollerbury was opened on the Station Hill as the National Roller Skate home. At first wildly popular, it would last just under 20 years.
The Register Office in Bury was moved out of Abbeygate Street, from the premises of Gross and Co., to the Shire Hall.
The Council's collection of films, some in a dangerous state, were sent to the East Anglian Film Archive in Norwich.
In November the council's building DLO had to let 30% of its work by Compulsory Competitive Tendering. This CCT regime as it was called would be continually tightened up and extended into all areas of council work for the next 20 years until it was replaced in 2001 by the Best Value regime.
The Orwell bridge was opened in December 1982 at Wherstead, demonstrating the importance of Suffolk ports as a gateway to Europe by this date. Ipswich could now be by - passed by commercial vehicles as well as private cars to reach Felixstowe and Harwich. The bridge was started in 1979 and was 1.3 kilometres long, with a clearance for shipping up the Orwell of 126 feet. The carriageway was two lanes in either direction.
Britain went to war over the Falkland Islands following their invasion by Argentina.
In May 1982, public limited companies changed their designation from the old "and Co Ltd" to the new "PLC".
In 1982 the first of two SR71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft was permanently stationed at Mildenhall. | | 1983 | On 1st April 1983 the Town Development Agreement with the GLC officially ended. In practice, development had halted some years before, but the various subsidies and allowances now ended. St Edmundsbury Borough Council purchased the remaining undeveloped GLC landholdings at outstanding debt levels. These were in Haverhill, where the GLC had managed Town Development directly itself. In Bury the council had owned the land and let and managed all contracts by agreement.
In 1983 St Edmundsbury changed its external audit from the District Auditor to a firm called Deloittes.
Bury got a new central library in 1983, built in St Andrews Street (North) behind the old Police Station. The pedestrian access from St Johns Street was named Sergeants Walk. The old county (formerly Borough) lending library in the School of Art building on Cornhill, was closed down, allowing the premises to be redeveloped for shopping purposes.
More change came when the old Odeon Cinema, called the Focus since 1975, was demolished.
The Bury firm of Marlow and co was severely hit by a Television programme called World in Action, which detailed problems with system built timber framed houses, due to alleged on site erection errors. Marlow's had built up a massive production line for Marlow Frames over the past two years, which they had to abandon by the end of the year. The firm survived and expanded its merchanting network and continued to produce its popular roof truss business.
At Beetons Lodge sixty sheltered units were completed and opened by the Mayor, Mrs Barbara Jennings. Fifty five new council dwellings were completed at Ashwell Road.
The Apple LISA was launched, the first commercial machine to us a Graphical User Interface (GUI). At the time it was known as WIMP programming "Windows, Icons, Mouse and Pointer." | | 1984 | The Council leased land at Moreton Hall to Sainsbury's for 125 years for a premium of £3.5 million. This was a revival in the Council's finances.
Agricultural yields in Suffolk reached a new peak. In the 19th century one acre could grow 16 cwt of wheat. By 1948 this figure had risen to 20 cwt, then rose 50% by 1962 to 30 cwt. This increase took only 14 years, but in only 22 more years it doubled to 60 cwt an acre in 1984. Better strains of wheat, chemical sprays and chemical fertilizers were responsible, but the natural world of birds and insects paid a heavy price. Manpower had been reduced drastically as mechanisation occurred. Only 3% of the workforce was engaged in farming in 1981 compared to 24% in 1901. This vast over production would lead to the "food mountains" of the European Community and the introduction of set aside land and reduced subsidies on production.
The IBM PC standard was firmly set with the launch of the 16 bit PC AT using an Intel 80286 processor running MS-DOS at 6MHz with 256K RAM, and 1.2Mb 5.25 inch floppy disc. By the year 2000 this architecture remained world standard although it had evolved through many generations. The terms "IBM-compatible" or "IBM clone" were used to describe copies produced by other manufacturers. The Apple Macintosh was launched on the Motorola 68000 processor at 8MHz and included its revolutionary Graphical User Interface, but it was more expensive than an IBM clone. |
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| 1985 | In September, St Edmundsbury Borough Council acquired the headlease of Nowton Court Estate from Morgan Grenfell. The council had acqired this estate on the outskirts of Bury as an opportunity purchase for the future. It would not turn it into a country park until later.
On Bury's Cornhill, the Castle Inn, next door to Moyses Hall, closed its doors. The premises are now called Superdrug, but the Castle had at one time, included part of Moyses Hall as an inn.
Microsoft Windows was launched as the latest operating system for micro-computers, as they were called at the time. The aim was to replace the older DOS operating system, and although it was hopelessly inferior to Apple's OS, it enjoyed success, and soon turned a generic term, Windows, into a commercial trade-name. | | 1986 | By March, interest rates were low by the standards of the past few years. Money could be borrowed from the Public Works Loans Board at just under 9% for 25 years. Local government in London was radically changed when the Greater London Council was abolished. Ken Livingstone had been its leader since 1981 and in 1987 he became MP for Brent East.
On 15th April 1986, 18 USAFE F111F fighter bombers flew from Lakenheath to join 15 A6 and A7 attack planes from the USS America and USS Coral Sea in the Mediterranean to bomb terrorist-related targets in Tripoli and Benghazi. One F111 and its crew of two did not return.
The Borough Council first introduced market regulations. The regulations governed stall location and market discipline and very importantly by this time, controlled the sale of the goodwill of sites. The growth of rival markets, usually disguised as car boot sales, was met by adopting Section 37 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 requiring prior notice of such events.
The council's car parks moved over from barrier control to pay and display to alleviate the troublesome queuing of cars on the roads waiting to get in. The robbery of money from a car park attendant in November also proved the value of the use of machines to collect the cash.
The Bury Society decided to promote the idea of the town being entered for the national In Bloom competitions, to promote the use and display of flowers more widely in the town.
Eleven more dwellings were built by the Council at Ashwell Road, in Bury.
In August five pictures were unscrewed from the walls of the Athenaeum and stolen. The thieves were soon caught and the pictures recovered. By chance, they were of little value, but resulted in their replacement by copies.
Intel's 80386 32 bit processor was launched. | | 1987 | In Bury, Sainsbury's supermarket moved from the Cornhill to Moreton Hall on the edge of town. The new land had been acquired in 1984 causing the future of the town centre to come into question.
The Cornhill Walk Shopping Arcade was opened on the site of the old Odeon Cinema.
In April, number 6 Angel Hill, formerly a doctor's house and surgery, was reopened by the Borough Council as its Tourist Information Office. It replaced various temporary solutions such as a portacabin inside the Abbey Gate, and could now be open comfortably all the year round.
In August, Bury won the "England in Bloom" competition for large towns, as joint winner with Crewe. The official launch of Bury in Bloom had only taken place a year ago, sponsored by the Bury St Edmunds Society. This early success would be followed by further triumphs in future years.
The Chestnut Court sheltered units were built with thirty five flats. Eleven new council flats were built on the Howard estate. The Council's new offices at Western Way, Bury opened in March. The Western Way site had been acquired from Barber Greene Olding when they wished to relocate to smaller premises following the reduction in road building worldwide. The Finance Department who had been in the Borough Offices now moved to Western Way. The Planning, Architectural and Surveying staff who had been in St Edmunds House, also moved to Western Way. More importantly for the future development of the town, the town depot moved out of its old Playfields site off Prospect Row, and into a site at Western Way. Gradually the Playfields site would be cleared of now redundant buildings, and given over to car parking.
The Borough offices were now closed for refurbishment. While the Borough Offices was closed, the remaining staff moved into St Edmunds House in Lower Baxter Street.
Factories were now built on land outside the town along the Mildenhall Road. Denny Brothers new printing works was opened in 1987. Within 15 years they would outgrow these premises, and move to Moreton Hall. The firm was no ordinary printers, as they had invented Fix-a-Form labels for a wide range of products whih needed complex instructions or details attached.
During the summer the Council agreed a fifteen point plan for the development of services. This became known as Paper B13A, and was still being referred to fifteen years later as being a significant statement of intent for future council initiatives.
The government announced its intention to replace rates by the Community Charge.
A new Fire Station was opened at Bury on the Parkway Road by the Duke of Gloucester in September. The premises on Fornham Road had experienced problems and the land was sold for housing.
In 1987 Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachov signed a treaty to eliminate intermediate range nuclear forces and from 1988 to 1991 all the Cruise Missile wings were inactivated.
The year 1987 was momentous in many ways. On 16th October 1987 a hurricane struck South-Eastern England and millions of trees were destroyed as well as power lines brought down and property seriously damaged.
On the 19th October the Stock Market fell 25% following a similar fall in the USA and the event became known as Black Monday. Wall Street fell 32% in just two months, but the October high would be regained within two years.
Windows 2 was launched, as was the Excel spreadsheet by Microsoft. In the UK, Acorn Computers of Cambridge launched its Archimedes computer, based on a RISC processor and an advanced GUI. Although faster, technically superior and easier to use than IBM clones, it could not compete with the size of the installed IBM base. | | 1988 | In 1988, Margaret Statham published her book entitled "The Book of Bury St Edmunds". It was a comprehensive history of Bury in a way that had not been attempted before, and took advantage of modern printing methods to include a host of illustrations, photographs and maps. It would be reprinted and updated in 1996. It was also unusual in bringing the story right up to the present year, and remains in 2002, the only publication on Bury truly worthy of its name.
Arising from purchases for Town Development, the Council still owned 165 acres of development land and there were indications that it would be directed to dispose of it by the government. In order to avoid such a forced sale, in March 1988 the Council set up the Buryhill Land Company in partnership with a merchant bank called Morgan Grenfell. The company would purchase the land, let contracts to build the infrastructure, and sell it to the private sector in line with its business plan. By June 1988 Base Rates had fallen to 7.5 % and mortgages were at 9.75%. The company's business plan looked secure. It would pay the Council £25.5 million in five annual instalments, in return for 22 acres north of Mount Road and 78 acres south of Mount Road in Bury, 41 acres at Chalkstone Way, Haverhill and 24 acres at Parkway in Haverhill.
This plan was part of the paper B13A proposals agreed in 1987. It provoked a formal objection to the Council's accounts for 1987/88. Although the objection was rejected, a number of recommendations were forthcoming when the report came out in 1989. Mostly these related to the amount of information to be included in reports, and after this date, Council reports became longer and more comprehensive.
One of these B13A proposals was to create a new museum. The Manor House on Honey Hill was bought by the Borough Council in 1988. It had previously been used for a variety of uses, but its latest had been as offices for the County Council. It was intended to bring it back into a representation of its original form and layout, albeit containing museum attractions. It needed considerable restoration and removal of the office partitions and wiring. This took until 1993.
The first Visitor Centre was opened at West Stow Country Park and the Anglo-Saxon reconstructions.
The refurbished Borough Offices re-opened on June 17th 1988. All the staff in the rented offices at St Edmund's House in Lower Baxter Street now moved back in. Staff also transferred in from the old premises of the Thingoe Rural District Council, called Thingoe House, in Northgate Street. These offices were then sold off, and the lease given up on St Edmunds House.
Wollaston Close was extended by 23 new council flats, but elsewhere the future of council housing was starting to be mapped out. The end of Council housing began when Chiltern Borough Council transferred all of its housing stock to a new Housing Association, set up to borrow the money to buy them, and subsequently rent them to the sitting tenants. This trend continued elsewhere throughout the 1990's.
Councils wound up their building programmes and concentrated upon improving their existing stocks of houses. St Edmundsbury Borough Council agreed to start Phase 1 of the refurbishment of the Clements Estate, including considerable environmental enhancements. Other phases would follow this and continue throughout the 1990's.
The firm of Barber Greene's who had been in Bury since 1961 announced that they would close within two weeks. The firm made road making eqipment and the market had all but dried up for this. In 1987 they had had to move to smaller premises, firstly on the old Boby's site, and then at Westley, leaving their long established site at Western Way.
The last town centre greengrocers shop was Green's, at the top of Risbygate Street and St Andrews Street. It finally closed, as it could no longer find enough in-town customers to continue. The big food supermarkets now provided most of peoples' food requirements, and all of their vegetable needs.
In Haverhill, the Cangle School closed, although its replacement had been planned since 1972.
In December it was announced that Bury had won the Britain in Bloom category for large towns.
Following several years of house price inflation, a final burst of price rises occurred after the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the abolition of multiple tax relief on mortgage interest repayments. This inflationary boom caused him to increase interest rates sharply, resulting in many repossessions as higher repayments could no longer be afforded. Base Rates were increased from 7.5% to 13% by December, and mortgage rates increased to 12.75%. | | 1989 | Haverhill Town Council was formed following extensive local consultations and a public enquiry, to better represent the views of the people of Haverhill and promote the town and activities in it.
In Bury, serious consideration was given to relocating the Livestock Market to allow for retail redevelopment, and a Cattle Market Redevelopment Working Party was set up. By September it was agreed to build a multi-storey carpark to serve the new development by the process of "Design and Build", and a design competition was launched.
Redwood Gardens were built with 22 sheltered units in Cotton Lane at Bury.
St Andrews Castle in Bury ceased its association with the Roman Catholic School on the site when it was converted into an Active Business Centre. The school moved to modern buildings nearby.
With the Berlin Wall opened in November 1989, the cold war rapidly drew to a close. Haverhill town centre became pedestrianised, and the West Suffolk Crematorium opened at Risby, both being part of the 1987 plan, outlined in Paper B13A.
The objections to the Council's accounts were dismissed by the audit commission, but several recommendations were made. These resulted in reports containing more detail, alternative options, and committee minutes recording any additional oral explanations made at meetings. The paperwork load on councillors was increased by this ruling. |
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Bury became declared Britain's Floral Town when it won the Florale Internationale for smaller towns and was runner up for the Grand Prix d'excellence.
In July 1988 mortgage interest rates were 9.75%, but by January 1989 they had risen to 13.5%, and in October they rose to 14.5%. House prices began to fall as repossessed properties flooded on to the market. Other home owners who could still meet higher repayments found that the value of their homes was now less than their mortgage making them unable to move house.
The Stock Market fell on 16th October and on 26th October Nigel Lawson resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer to be replaced by John Major.
The Intel 80486 processor was launched. Tim Berners-Lee proposed a method of using hypertext and assigning such documents a unique identifier so that network accessible information could be easily transferred. This was the start of the World Wide Web. He used existing technologies, but by establishing standards such as the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), it was possible to achieve a fast implementation. | | 1990 | On 1st April the old Rating system was abolished. It was replaced by a National Non Domestic Rate to cover business and commercial premises, and by the Community Charge to replace domestic rates. The Community Charge or Poll Tax was levied on every person over 18 living in the collection area. At the same time, the maximum rebate that could be paid was cut from 100% to 80%, to ensure that everybody paid something for local services, whatever their ability to pay. In St Edmundsbury the Borough Community Charge was £71.27 per head for 1990/91.
The Local Government and Housing Act 1990 was also to have a major impact on the capital spending of local authorities and on their Housing Revenue accounts. In the first year, St Edmundsbury began transferring money from the Housing account into the General fund because of the rules of negative housing subsidy. At the same time the Council could spend only 25% of housing capital receipts and 50% of general fund receipts. Capital programmes were soon cut back across the country.
In 1990 the last of the new houses built by St Edmundsbury Borough Council were planned. A contract for 41 dwellings at Chalkstone Way, Haverhill, was arranged by way of a Deferred Purchase agreement with a Merchant Bank, Messrs Morgan Grenfell. Government restrictions on new building and the new housing subsidy arrangements had ended the era of new Council house building. All new social housing after this time would be provided by Housing Associations.
At the same time that Council house building was coming to a stop in April, mortgage interest rates rose from 14.5% to nearly 15.5% and house prices continued to fall through the year.
The Environmental Protection Act of 1990 introduced onerous new duties on local authorities. Highway cleaning was transferred from County Councils to District Councils and the public were given rights to complain about litter and to have a response within a set timescale.
The old TA Centre in Kings Road was converted from being the Council's vehicle depot into 20 flats known as Yeomanry Yard. Four more had a King's Road address.
In August 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait threatening the West's access to vital oil supplies. In response in August 1990 18 of Lakenheath's F111s are deployed to Saudi Arabia as part of Desert Shield. 14 more go in September, 20 in November and 12 in December. Desert Storm began on 16th January 1991.
Nowton Park was opened to the public by the Council.
The cathedral of St James opened its new facilities for meetings and conferences, as another step forward in making it fit for the headquarters of the diocese.
Through the summer, the rains kept away, and 1990 became another year of drought, something which would typify the most of the decade.
In October, Britain joined the European Exchange Rate mechanism at 2.95 deutsche marks. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was Mr John Major. At the time, this was thought a bold and decisive move to help the economy converge with those of Europe. The exchange rate then had to remain within 6% of the average of all the EEC currencies, known as the Snake. The Base Rate came down to 14%. Mrs Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister in November 1990. In December the rate of inflation was 9.7% as John Major became Prime Minister. This was also the year when the Japanese economic miracle began to fail. Over the next twelve years the Nikkei Index would fall 76%, and much of Japan's economic performance for many decades was shown to have structural weaknesses.
Windows 3 was launched. | | 1991 | Operation Desert Shield became Desert Storm, the start of the Gulf War, on 16th January 1991. F111F's of 48th Tactical Fighter Wing from Lakenheath destroyed dozens of hardened shelters and tanks before the ceasefire on 28th February 1991.
Following continued public disquiet over the Community Charge the budget included provision to cut £140 from each bill. This was paid for by an increase in VAT from 15% to 17.5%. It was also announced that the Community Charge would be abolished and replaced by the Council Tax. Mortgage interest relief was also restricted to the basic rate of tax and tax was increased on lease cars by 20%. Inflation fell to 8.9% in February and interest rates were also cut. Base Rate was 14% in January and fell to 10.5% by December.
Bury's population recorded in the census for this year was now 32,774, an increase of 12,718 or 63% since 1951.
Bury opened its multi-storey car park on Parkway in October 1991. The charge was 40p for a day's parking. It was located east of the Parkway Road in order to retain the cattle market site for possible retail development. The idea was that it would then serve the new shops. Because the development did not happen, the multi deck never achieved its full potential, only filling up on the most busy days of the year, such as half term holiday Wednesdays. Its charges would remain low to make it attractive, as the existing parking was to remain, and be increased over the next dozen years.
The Norman Tower and Abbey Gate were cleaned of centuries of grime and dirt to reveal details new to late 20th century eyes. Abbeygate Street was closed to traffic on market days (Wednesday and Saturday) from 6am to 6pm. These were all part of the 1987 fifteen point plan made by the Council. Alwyne House was opened as a Tea room in the Abbey Gardens at Bury. In May, the first Milk Race was held in Bury for international cyclists.
In Churchgate Street the refurbishment and conversion of the Unitarian Chapel was completed. It could now be let out for public functions as well as continuing as a place of worship.
Civil War began in Yugoslavia. The Warsaw pact disbanded in July 1991 and the Soviet Union itself dissolved five months later. In December, John Major signed the Maastricht agreement on European political and economic union. Inflation had fallen to 4.3% by November. | | 1992 | In January the Bury Leisure Centre was re-opened with a new leisure pool, flumes, fitness suite and sauna rooms.
In West Road, the Plymouth Brethren re-opened their modernised and enlarged church.
In February 1992 the 100th Air Refuelling Wing was set up at Mildenhall made up of the 513th TAW merged with SAC's 306th Strategic Wing which was deactivated. Still known as RAF Mildenhall, this base covers over 1,000 acres and the main runway is over 3,000 yards long.
The F111's were to leave the 48th FW at Lakenheath during 1992 and the last one left in December 1992.
Lakenheath now flies the F15E fighter planes with the distinctive twin tails. The first F15E in Europe come to Lakenheath in February 1992. 48 in total were delivered up to May 1994 to the 48th Fighter Wing.
In April, the Conservatives won the General Election, against all earlier predictions. Mr Richard Spring was elected MP for Bury St Edmunds. Base Rates had fallen to 10.5%, and were cut to 10% in May. By July the Retail Prices index was only 3.9%. The Local Government pay award was 4%, a level not exceeded for the next decade.
By this date electric power supplies were made available to all of Bury's market stalls which needed it to comply with legislation. The market was extended into the Traverse under its Business Plan.
In June 1992 the Borough council repaid all its remaining borrowings of £11.3 millions to obtain debt free status. It had been reducing debt for the last decade by a steady annual process, which speeded up in more recent times. This final move was to avoid Government rules to set aside half the proceeds of all sales of property, rather than re-invest it all in new infrastructure as the Council desired. The repayment of relatively cheap loans allowed the council to receive a discount of nearly £600,000 on the deal.
In June the government announced a rolling review of the organisation of local authorities, with a presumption towards unitary, or all-purpose, councils being set up. There were to be 5 tranches, with Suffolk in Tranche 4. The review was to be finished by 1996, and the new councils all in place by 1998.
The Buryhill Land Company ceased trading. This company had been set up by St Edmundsbury Borough Council in 1988 to buy all the Council's undeveloped land. The continued depressed prices for housing land following a slump in house prices made the company's future untenable. Because the council had repaid all of its loan debt, to obtain debt free status, this allowed it to buy back the remaining land holdings of the company. In Haverhill, the Council re-acquired 28.6 acres at Chalkstone and 22.15 acres at Parkway. In Bury there were 38.7 acres south of Mount Road, and 0.64 acres north of that road. |
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The Magi by Sybil Andrews
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In 1992 the Bury born artist, Sybil Andrews, died. She had been born in Bury St Edmunds above the Andrews and Plumptons ironmongers, in 1898, but moved to London in 1922. After this she became known for her modernistic lino-cut prints. In 1947 she and her husband emigrated to Canada, but she was quickly appreciated there for her artistic talents. Suffolk continued to influence her works throughout her life, despite a prolonged absence from the County. Even in Canada she continued to produce some work which reflected Suffolk life as she remembered it. Her linocuts and watercolours are now collected and exhibited internationally, and some are included in the collection at the Manor House Museum. One or two of her prints were found when the strongrooms at the Borough Offices were cleared prior to the move to Western Way by some Council departments in 1987.
In Haverhill the East Town Park was opened and the Sports Centre got two giant water slides.
The economy broke out of recession but things remained difficult for many individuals and families. Negative equity following a fall in house prices continued to hold things back.
In 1990 John Major had joined the European Exchange Rate Mechanism at what came to be regarded as too high a rate for the pound. Disaster struck on 16th September, when international traders started to sell pounds. Interest rates were raised twice in one day from 10% to 15% until UK membership of the ERM was suspended at 7.30 pm that night, and the base rate cut back again to 10%. This became known as Black Wednesday. In the next three months interest rates were cut three times to end the year at 7%. This experience would sour the British view of possible European Monetary Union for a decade.
In October the Parkway Car park was closed when a clock box was seen in a paper bag under a car near where RAF personnel were parked. The Colchester bomb squad damaged the car when a controlled explosion was set off to make safe the suspect package.
1992 was also the year that Barry Clutterham was shot by the police in Pigeon Lane at Fornham All Saints. A policeman had been shot, and there had been a car chase ending in the lane.
Windows 3.1 was launched. Finally, Windows had a stable bug-free system, but it was still markedly inferior to the Apple or even the Cambridge based Acorn systems. Only the weight of mass-support and the business acumen of Microsoft kept it afloat. | | 1993 | On 1st April the Community Charge was abolished following various campaigns including public disorder. The Poll Tax, as it was universally called, had only lasted for three years from 1st April, 1990 to 31st March, 1993. It was replaced by the Council Tax based upon bands of property values, paid by the householder. Unlike the Community Charge, people on low incomes could qualify for 100% relief, owing nothing at all. Property Bands went from A to H, the top band being for properties over £320,000 in value. This band was not included in the original plan, but was added following protests that band G for properties over £160,000, was not a fair upper limit. However, the system of a nationally set Business Rate was to continue, and local councils were permanently deprived of a direct financial link to the success of local business.
Big changes were happening in the world of further education. The West Suffolk Technical Institute was removed from the control of the Local Education Authority, the Suffolk County Council, and became a self governing Trust. It changed its name to the West Suffolk College.
Simpson's cattle market site was sold to the Council, who leased it to Lacy Scott, the last remaining livestock auctioneer in Bury. |
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The Manor House Museum was opened in the Honey Hill building which had been originally built as the town house of Lord Bristol and the Hervey family of Ickworth in 1738. It was refurbished particularly as a secure home for the Borough Council's collection of time recording instruments, bequeathed to the town by Frederic Gershom-Parkington, in memory of his son, John, killed in 1941 in the war. The clocks had been previously on display in a somewhat restricted, but well loved, manner in the Clock Museum housed at Angel Corner. Several break-ins and thefts had made a more secure relocation a necessity.
The new museum also displayed the borough's collection of textiles and clothing. The collection was enhanced by the Irene Barnes Collection of women's beaded and sequinned costumes from the period of 1919 to 1939. Manor House became the home of the Mabilla Group, dedicated to the conservation of the collection, and the maintenance of the needlework skills necessary. The collection continued to grow based on this strong beginning.
The museum also housed most of the Borough Council's collection of pictures and prints, many of which had been bequests to the town. Since about 1987 the Borough had also had an active collecting policy of artists and scenes of local interest. The council already had two pictures by the Barrow born artist Mary Beale, acquired another in 1987 and a self portrait in 1989. In 1993 Richard Jeffree, a follower of Mrs Beales' work died, and left his collection of 14 portraits by her to the Manor House Museum, with a request that they be on permanent display.
Angel Corner, or to use its postal address, number 8 Angel Hill, now became the offices supporting the Mayor, including the Mayor's Parlour. Other space was also used as offices by the Borough Council, but this use on upper floors became much restricted by Fire Regulations.
After years of campaigning, Haverhill's new southern bypass was started in August. The work revealed 1st century Roman brooches and some iron age finds. There was flooding in October and, more significantly, a complete renovation programme was started on the Town Hall. Haverhill Sports Centre was refurbished with health and fitness areas and a soft play zone.
In September, the St Edmundsbury council's Transport and Works Committee agreed to build a new bus station to serve the town. Following the deregulation of buses, the old bus station by Moyses Hall had been sold for redevelopment. Bus companies were now under no obligation to provide facilities for passengers to be picked up.
In November St Edmundsbury decided that it would ask the Local Government Commission to support a West Suffolk Unitary Authority in our area. Suffolk County Council supported the status quo of a two tier county.
By December the retail prices index had fallen to only 1.9%, an incredibly low level compared to three years earlier.
In 1993 the twin bases at RAF Woodbridge and Bentwaters were returned to the British.
The Intel Pentium processor was announced and Microsoft announced Windows NT, a system meant to improve upon the unreliable and un-secure Windows OS for business use. Students in Illinois created Mosaic, the first web browser. Without this work, you might not be able to read this Chronicle today. | | 1994 | In June, St Edmundsbury Borough Council Council decided not to proceed with the redevelopment of the Cattle Market site. The size of the project was raising public concerns, the relocation of the livestock market to a new site could not achieve agreement, and there were demands for another multi storey carpark to be built on the GPO Sorting Office site.
In July the Local Government Commission published its draft proposals for the reorganisation of Norfolk and Suffolk Local Government. Waveney and Yarmouth, the latter currently in Suffolk were to be amalgamated. Ipswich would stand alone, and East Suffolk be put together from Suffolk Coastal, and parts of Babergh and Mid Suffolk. West Suffolk would be returned to nearly its old historic boundaries of Forest Heath, St Edmundsbury, and parts of Mid Suffolk and Babergh.
The Sunday Trading Act 1994 came into force in July. This allowed small shops unlimited opening hours on Sundays. Large shops were restricted to 10am to 4pm on Sundays.
The red meat inspection service was transferred from local government to a new central authority.
Stephen Dykes Bower died in 1994 and left nearly £2 million towards the completion of the tower and works to St James's Cathedral. Suddenly there was the prospect of completing his design for Bury's cathedral church.
In 1994 the Abbeygate Street closure was extended from just market days, to every day except Sunday. The hours of closure were from 10am to 4pm, except market days which remained at 6am to 6pm.
At Moreton Hall there had been great development of private housing, industry and commerce. Some major shopping outlets were now located here, and a new Anglican parish was established. Christ Church was set up by the Church of England, but run on ecumenical lines.
The Abbey Visitor Centre was opened in Samson's Tower in the West Front of the Abbey Ruins in partnership with English Heritage. Unfortunately it would be closed for budgetary reasons within a few years.
The Buryhill Land Company was officially put into liquidation by its owners although it had ceased trading in 1992. It achieved a solvent liquidation with a net profit after tax of £16,788, but most importantly the Council was able to contribute £922,000 to the Haverhill by-pass construction by Suffolk County Council on 1st June 1994. The income from the company had also contributed to pedestrian priority measures, the new East Town Park and the refurbishment of the old Town Hall in Haverhill. Phase I of the bypass was finished in June. The Town Hall reopened in time for a pantomime in December. It was named the Town Hall Arts Centre following a public competition to choose a name. A partnership began with the NRA to develop the West Town Park at Haverhill.
Opening in time for Christmas, the old penning area of Simpson's market was turned into carparking, including a burnt out house in Prospect Row. Lacy Scott continued to run the buildings on Simpsons Site as an auction mart.
In December, the Base Rate moved up when it rose from 5.75% to 6.25%, and the RPI rose from 2.6% to 2.9%.
In 1994 the RAF Regiment took up residence at RAF Honington. Their battle role is to secure forward bases which can then be used by aircraft and to provide the necessary defence and security once acquired. After a time a specialist Chemical, Biological and Nuclear defence unit was established here.
Lakenheath's F15 fighters were sent to Italy to help enforce the no-fly zone in Bosnia.
The National Lottery began with the aim of generating new funds for good causes.
The Channel Tunnel was opened.
The Mosaic browser became the basis for Netscape navigator, the key to the World Wide Web for the next two years. | | 1995 | Barings Bank collapsed in February 1995, following losses of £860 million caused by unauthorised trading in the Far East. A new term of Rogue Trader was invented to describe these type of activities by individuals within investment firms.
St Edmundsbury's Environmental Health Department was merged with the Housing Department in April. The Works department was split up so that Housing Maintenance also joined the new Environmental Health and Housing Department.
Compulsory Competitive Tendering of Council Services moved up a gear following the demise of local government reorganisation. A wider range of services came under the rules including Personnel, IT and Finance.
In 1995 Alconbury closed after 53 years of US flying presence. Later that year Chicksands was returned to the British after 45 years in US hands.
In April the new Police Authorities were set up, taking them away from being a committee of the County Councils, and thus the Suffolk Police Authority was created.
In May, the four-yearly elections for St Edmundsbury Borough Council produced its first ever Labour party majority. The new Leader of the Council was a Haverhill Councillor, a significant event for that town.
In May 1995 it was the 50th anniversary of VE Day and St Edmundsbury Borough Council organised a weekend of free events to mark the occasion. The War Memorial on the Angel Hill in Bury was refurbished and put into a new setting, with flower beds and a paved surround. Gradually the whole of the Angel Hill was improved each year.
Summer 1995 was a year of drought, heralding a period from 1995 to 1997, which would be the driest for 200 years.
Celebrity cricket started at the Victory Ground in Bury.
By December 1995, the Prospect Row carpark was turned from a rough cleared site to a high quality carpark when it was completely tarmaced and properly laid out. It had previously been the council's depot before the move to Western Way in 1987, but the site had only been cleared to ground level, leaving a rough hoggin surface, with plenty of rough edges.
Bury's rather run down Railway Station facade was cleaned and repointed. However, the interior, which was still operationally part of British Rail, stayed in its shabby state.
Microsoft finally launched Windows 95, which at last approached the standards of competing GUI's but was still inferior. By now however, it was virtually the only game in town because of its wide availability, and the size of its installed base. | | 1996 | A further major part of the Haverhill by-pass was completed representing just one of the road improvements laid down in the Gibberd Master Plan.
In March the livestock industry suffered a severe blow when the EU banned the export of British beef because of the spread of a disease called BSE, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.
In April the new Bus and Coach station was opened in St Andrews Street in Bury, although bus operators could not be compelled to use it. This facility was universally welcomed. Less welcome was the closure of the Suffolk Hotel, a well known meeting place by day and night, and its replacement by two shops.
Universal Council Tax capping was brought in by the government. District Councils spending above a Standard Spending Assessment set by government are capped to an increase of just 0.5%. Unfortunately this did not stop any council's pay and other costs from increasing at the going rate of about 3% a year, it just stopped these from being met out of the council tax. Several long years of cutting council spending on services would follow this move.
In September the St Edmundsbury council took the decision to proceed without delay to promote a multiplex cinema for Bury. This decision had still not been achieved by 2002.
In 1996, Tesco's supermarket opened for business off the St Saviours roundabout. As the store abutted the old St Saviour's Hospital, dating from monastic days, the developers funded an extensive archaeological excavation of the site. The public were invited to open days and the dig was well attended by onlookers.
Ridley's Grocers shop in Abbeygate Street closed in October 1996, citing the high levels of Business Rates in town centres as its reason. Although there had been a grocer's shop on this site, on the corner of Angel Lane, since around 1700, food items were now mainly bought from massive stores like Sainsbury's and Tesco in out of town locations. Land costs were lower, free parking could be offered on site, and rating valuations per square foot were lower in such places. The large numbers who used them allowed massive economies of scale in management and purchasing power, thus reducing consumer prices to levels at which smaller shops could no longer compete. Waitrose supermarket had even arrived on the edge of town centre, on the old Boby's site, off St Andrews Street, competing directly with the specialist quality foods sold at Ridleys, and also competing for the custom of the non-car users within the town centre itself.
Also in October, St Edmundsbury Borough Council began using Document Image Processing for the management of the paperwork involved in the collection of Council Tax and Business Rates. It was thought that this technology would be widely adopted throughout the council, but this did not happen except for Benefits processing, also within the Finance Department.
In November No Mans Meadows were opened as a nature reserve with a circular footpath. This represented a major initiative by the Guildhall Feoffees to allow public access to their land, in partnership with the Council.
By the end of 1996 the USAFE had only 246 planes in Europe, its lowest ever level.
Microsoft realigned its policy to concentrate not upon desktop computers, but on the internet. It launched three versions of Internet Explorer in the one year, and by supplying it free with Windows, it all but destroyed Netscape's market share. A long running legal battle would follow in the USA, and the growth of use of the world wide web in the next few years would be extraordinary. | | 1997 | Kidzown at Haverhill Leisure Centre was a major success as an activity area for younger children, after opening in January.
In February the Council's Planning Committee selected the Parkway Carpark as the site best suited to the quick achievement of a multiplex cinema. In April a developer was selected by competition. This development was universally welcomed by the people of Bury except for bitter opposition from residents in Chalk Road and other streets quite close nearby.
For the General Election in May, the constituencies in western Suffolk were reorganised. The area of St Edmundsbury became covered by three seats. Richard Spring, the sitting Conservative MP at Bury stood for, and won the seat of West Suffolk. The reorganised Bury constituency was won for the Conservatives by Mr David Ruffley, and South Suffolk was won by Mr Tim yeo.
Nationally, the Labour Party won the General Election by a landslide in May and within four days the Chancellor of the Exchequer handed over his power to set the Base Rate to the Bank of England's new Monetary Policy Committee.
British Railways was privatised by the government, following a long process over several years. Various regional companies were set up, but the track itself was sold to a seperate body called RailTrack, who would sell its usage to the railway operators. Anglia Railways now runs the passenger services at Bury.
St Saviours Hospital ruins were opened to the public in June, a joint initiative of Tescos development, Suffolk Archaelogical Service and St Edmundsbury Council.
During 1997 the Bury Corn Market, still held in the Corn Exchange every Wednesday, dwindled to the extent that no merchants bothered to turn up any more.
In July, St Edmundsbury Borough Council launched this website at its Tourism Forum. St Edmundsbury had also already begun to provide its leading councillors with e-mail facilities using the text based ICL Officepower office automation product used throughout the council. At this point the council was ahead of many others in its use of IT, but the market was to become dominated by Microsoft's products, which would eventually leave the council's e-mail system isolated and more and more incompatible with other users.
The Intel Pentium MMX processor was launched in January. 56K modems became the norm. By June the Pentium II processor was launched and Windows 98 was released.
A surprise for pension funds arrived when in July the Tax Credit on Advance Corporation Tax was abolished for them. This move would become increasingly controversial in the years ahead as the financial position of most pension funds deteriorated.
The year 1997 was another year of drought, and the period from 1995 was described as the driest period for 200 years. By now scientists were becoming seriously worried by the idea of global warming and blamed it on the emission of greenhouse gasses, from burning fossil fuels, and the extensive use of certain industrial gasses.
In September, the West Suffolk Athletics Arena was opened in Bury by Roger Black and Jane Sixsmith. The Sports Lottery Fund gave a grant of £880,000, which met most of the cost.
In December the refurbished Haverhill Bus Station was opened with new shelters and layout. Haverhill Provision Market was moved temporarily into the High Street to allow the Peas Market Square to be refurbished.
| | 1998 | In January the Haverhill Friday Market was returned to the Market Square but traders staged a boycott on its first day. After that, things returned to normal.
Early in the year the Lord chancellor's Department rejected appeals against the proposed closure of Magistrates' Courts in Haverhill, Newmarket and Stowmarket.
In January Lacy Scott started a Monday livestock market to replace the market they were forced to close at Wickham Market, in East Suffolk. In June 1998, the Banbury Cattle Market closed after 800 years. In August, following a drop in cattle sales caused by the BSE crisis, and a disastrous fall in pig prices, Lacy Scott gave up the lease on Simpson's market area and the Council demolished it to provide 80 car park spaces in time for Christmas. A new Cattle Market Redevelopment Working Party was set up in April to discuss the whole future of this site again. In December, Lacy Scott and Knight announced the complete closure of the livestock market in Bury St Edmunds, and they gave up their lease of the Council's pig pens and lorry wash. Not only were economic factors in play, but throughout the year animal rights protestors had harried the operators and the council about the market. The so-called "Deadstock" market still remained open, but 370 car parking spaces now became available to the general public every Wednesday.
W H Smith closed their store in the Butter Market at Bury. They would take over Martins and move into their premises next to the Post Office.
A virtual reality computer model of the Abbey at Bury was put on display with the support of Greene King. This model can be downloaded by users of the web site.
Compulsory Competitive Tendering rolled on as the Revenues section of the Borough Council set up a bidding team to lead the in-house tender.
In June, a set of pay data was published which led base rates to be raised to 7.5%. This data became discredited and in October interest rates were reduced by one quarter per cent, a half per cent in November and another quarter in December to 6.25%.
Fifteen F15 fighters left Lakenheath for Italy to support airstrikes against Serbia in an attempt to halt ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Greene King ceased its bottling operations in Bury. Pauls Malt opened a new £27.7 million malting complex in Eastern Way overlooking the A14.
By 1998 the fear of a Millenium Bug in computer systems across the world was being taken more and more seriously. The fear was that computers had been programmed to use only two digits to define the year in any date, and that 00 would cause errors to occur. It was also feared that the machines would fail to calculate that the year 2000 was a leap year, as in most centuries it was not.
In Haverhill bollards had to be erected at Queens Street to enforce the pedestrianisation, which motorists had been ignoring.
An important part of the information superhighway was completed when contractors laid a trunk cable from London to Haverhill, Bury, Diss, Lowestoft and across the Channel to The continent to create a giant loop. They passed through St Edmundsbury from September to December. The BBC also started transmission of digital television, taking space in the On Digital Terrestrial service, and on Sky.
In October the Borough had its first council houses declared listed buildings. These were numbers 1 to 8 Stow Road, Ixworth, built in 1893/94 under the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890. At the time it was felt they needed land to grow food, so each had about one-third of an acre in garden attached. The work was initiated by Thingoe Rural Sanitary Authority, soon to become a Rural District Council. | | 1999 | The year opened with some attempts to rescue the livestock market operations, but what trade remained was carried out on a local farm. In May, the Chelmsford Livestock Market ceased animal sales. The European Community beef ban was lifted in August, having been in force since March 1996. In its wake, only Colchester and Norwich were left with livestock markets operating to serve the whole of East Anglia.
Most of the European Community had entered into European Monetary Union on 1st January. Britain decided not to join until economic conditions were right, and following a referendum.
In April Grampian Country Foods closed its chicken processing factory in Cotton Lane in Bury, with the loss of 255 jobs.
A controversial part of the enhancement of the town centre historic core zone was finally completed when wrought iron pillars were erected in the highway at St Mary's Church in Bury. Their purpose was to signal to motorists that they were entering into a 20 mph zone, and as such, were called a "gateway feature". These gates had previously been designed following a public competition and selection process, but the winning design was rejected by the council. Even so, the compromise final structures became a hot election issue, along with the issue of whether to proceed or not with a Cinema at Parkway car park.
On May 6th, the Borough elections, held every four years, returned a Conservative majority. Haverhill continued to be strongly Labour.
In July a new building was opened at West Stow on two levels. The lower level was given over to interpretation and display of archaeological finds related to the Anglo-Saxons. The upper level contains a bright new cafeteria and the site's shop. The project was now called the Anglo-Saxon Centre, and the Heritage Lottery Fund met most of the cost.
In July the English Schools Athletics Championships were held at the West Suffolk Athletics Arena, with 2,000 competitors from all over the country. |
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Angel Hill streetscene 1999
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At Bury St Edmunds the works to improve the Angel Hill were substantially completed, with a new walkway to the Abbey Gate and planters installed into York paving. Reproduction lighting columns were installed, copied from old Bury photos, and special lighting brackets and lamp bowls supplied by Urbis Lighting. These works have proved to be extremely popular, and gained immediate acceptance with the public. The work was designed and installed by St Edmundsbury's Highways staff, working as agents for Suffolk County Council. Their work is of the highest quality, but by 2002, the County Council wanted to withdraw the Agency Agreement.
In Haverhill the old Cangle School was re-opened under a new name in September 1999. The Cangle Project was now called the Cangle Junction and offered supported housing, employment and training opportunities to young people aged 16 to 25 in housing need. The Junction included a cyber cafe with four internet computers offering free internet use to all. The project was run by English Churches Housing Group.
In September, St Edmundsbury Council acquired the old Cleales site behind the south side of Haverhill High Street to improve the infrastructure of the town. A bandstand was opened at Haverhill Town Park, also called the Recreation Ground.
Bus services were criticised, but there were hopes for a new railway study of a Cambridge-Haverhill-Sudbury link.
Interest rates were progressively reduced so that by June, they were at 5%. House prices responded by rising significantly in favoured areas, particularly London, while in some places in the North some streets were being left empty or houses sold at ridiculously low prices.
Two judicial review hearings overturned the Borough Council decisions on granting planning permission for a brewery access road across the Butts, and the granting of planning permission for a multiplex cinema. Both planning applications were re-submitted. However in December a second judicial review was launched against the cinema application.
Greene King shut down its in-house malting operation.
The UN intervened in Bosnia and military units from our area were involved including Lakenheath and RAF Honington.
Sixteen new F15E's were delivered to RAF Lakenheath to replace some of the 48th Fighter Wings older versions. The total assigned numbers of 48 F15E's and 24 F15C's remain the same.
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Marlows return to Timber Frames
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With pressure for development increasing, the Government announced that 1.1 million new homes were needed in the south east by 2016. Haverhill could increase by five to six thousand people by 2016. By the end of 1999, Marlow's had completely withdrawn from the role of Builders' Merchants. All of their eleven branch network was sold off as merchanting was now producing a very low return on capital invested for the old family firm. At Hollow Road in Bury, the site retained its Garden Centre but the warehouses were now available to expand the timber fabrication side of the business. The 32 acre site had just had a major investment to make more trussed rafters, floor decks, and in particular to allow a return to the manufacture of timber-frame house systems, formerly abandoned in 1983.
The Intel Pentium III processor was launched.
In December the news came that the Borough had been declared a Beacon Council for Sustainable Development - Dealing with Waste, for its work on recycling domestic waste.
Yet another small trader in the town centre closed down when Berry's the Bakers closed in Churchgate Street. Berry's had been there since 1906, but bread had probably been baked in the old Georgian ovens through the 19th century. The premises were converted into a private house, with the brick ovens preserved. Originally wood fired, they were converted to coal fired in the 20th century. On Christmas eve, Berry's closed down, after their final bake. Finches Bakery continued to operate in Westgate Street, but this old bakery (at least back to 1900) had been fully modernised into new bakery premises in 1961.
As January 31st, 1999 became the year 2000 there were fireworks in Bury and a laser show in Haverhill. | | 2000 | The year 2000 did not bring the widespread devastation that had been predicted from the Millenium Bug. This may have been due to the extensive preparations carried out nationwide, including at local councils. Only one PC at the Borough Council proved vulnerable and had to be replaced, the conversion that had been undertaken having apparently failed.
A basic personal computer at the start of the year 2000 consisted of a Pentium III processor running at 600MHz with 128 Megabytes of RAM, a fixed hard disc of 12 to 20 Gigabytes, DVD and CD-ROM drives and a built in modem, and a sound system with speakers, running Windows 98 second edition operating system. The price is typically £1,200 and the pace of change in personal computing and the spread of e-commerce on the internet and the uptake of the world-wide-web became extremely rapid and widespread in 1999 and 2000.
Every month seemed to bring new announcements of faster machines. In February, Windows 2000 was launched and in March AMD announced that it now had 1000 MHz, or 1 Gigahertz, Athlon processors available. However, the US Justice Department declared, following a long trial, that Microsoft had abused its dominant market position to harm other software suppliers like Netscape. Such was the importance of the internet now judged to be by the government, that it announced that 100% of government transactions would be electronically available by 2005.
In Bury, a skateboard park was opened at Olding Road. The project had been initiated and largely designed by a committee of young people, and funded in partnership with the Council.
A new Community Centre was opened at Moreton Hall financed by lottery funding together with Council money.
In Bury, work began on building a new tower for the Cathedral.
St Edmundsbury were winners of the Nations in Bloom award for small towns held in Japan. |
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The growth of homes predicted by the Government in 1999 was replaced by a new target of 43,000 homes a year in the south east for the next five years.
At Bury, the firm of Marlow and Co was contributing to this growth by investing over £1 million in a state of the art production facility for timber framed houses, with a capacity of 1,000 houses a year. Plans were laid to expand to 4,000 a year.
The old pig sheds on the ex-Livestock market site in Bury were demolished and replaced by 103 new car parking spaces. As if to seal the fate of the livestock market, the old Market Tavern, at the top of Risbygate Street, was turned into a wine bar called Number Three.
Planning permission was granted to Greene King for the second time to build a short access road across the Butts to Cullum Road. The first permission was quashed by the High Court following a judicial review hearing. A further judicial review of the planning permission given to the Parkway site Multiplex cinema resulted in dismissal of the objections. However the process had by now been delayed by 18 months, and had already taken four years.
In May hot weather followed by heavy rain and thunderstorms caused flash floods in Sudbury and Haverhill as well as other parts of Suffolk. July was characterised by heavy rains and local flooding in Bury.
In July the population of the Borough of St Edmundsbury was officially estimated at 97,200.
Several World War II Memorial Associations decided to lay up their standards as the numbers of fit veterans dwindled. The Bury branches of the Dunkirk Veterans Association and the Burma Star Association decided to disband after more than forty years. Some of the American Bomb Group Associations also made this their final re-union.
However, in August, St Edmundsbury Borough Council held America week, culminating in the granting of the Honorary Freedom of the Borough to the Third Air Force of the United States of America.
The Local Government Act of 2000 would change the way in which all councils took decisions in future. The committee system had been in operation since the 19th century, but would be replaced by either a system of elected mayors or a system of Leader and Cabinet. Councils had to carry out this change by May 2002.
News was also received that objectors to the planning permission for the multiplex cinema at Parkway were refused leave to appeal. However, they soon scheduled another High Court hearing for November.
Also in August the pig industry in Suffolk was struck by an outbreak of classical swine fever. Exports of pig meat were banned.
September produced another national crisis when on the 7th a blockade of fuel depots was started by a coalition of hauliers and farmers groups, protesting against the escalating cost of road fuel. Fuel protests spread with popular support and shortages soon arose, resulting in considerable disruption to ordinary life within a surprisingly short time. Local authorities were asked to supply volunteers to man the few petrol stations where petrol would be made available to essential workers. When the government agreed to consider a reduction in fuel duty, the protests ended, but the vulnerability of the economy to such shocks had been quickly exposed by this action.
Heavy rains in October and November led to widespread flooding on a national scale. West Suffolk fortunately escaped the wide-scale disaster with only fairly local inconvenience.
The Human Rights Act came into force in October.
From 1982 to 2000 the rising, or Bull, stock market had been the longest such run in history. A slight fall back in December would lead to a long decline over the next two years.
In December, 100 jobs were announced as lost in the textile industry at Great Cornard when Guilford Europe decided to move production to its central plant in Derbyshire. Later these jobs would get reprieved. |
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