Blythburgh, Suffolk

Historical Description

Blythburgh, an ancient but decayed town and a parish in Suffolk. The town stands on the river Blythe, 4½ miles ESE of Halesworth, and it has a station on the Halesworth and Southwold railway. It has a post office under Halesworth, which is the money order and telegraph office. It was formerly a market-town of some note, but it suffered severely from a fire and other events in the 17th century, and went into decay. A priory of Black Canons stood here; was given by Henry I. to St Osyth's Abbey in Essex; and passed at the dissolution to Sir Arthur Hopton; and some trifling remains of its buildings still exist. The parish includes also the hamlets of Hinton and Bulcamp. Acreage, 4325; population, 746. A battle between Anna, King of East Anglia, and Penda, King of Mercia, in which the former was slain, was fought at Bulcamp in 654. The living is a vicarage, united with Walberswick, in the diocese of Norwich; joint net yearly value, £140 with residence. The church is a fine building of stone in the Perpendicular style, and has painted windows, a font, and remains of ancient monuments. There are a Primitive Methodist chapel and the Blything workhouse.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Blythburgh from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Blythburgh (Holy Trinity))

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Suffolk is available to browse.

Maps

Online maps of Blythburgh are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Suffolk papers online:

• The Ipswich Journal
• East Suffolk Mercury and Lowestoft Weekly News
• Bury and Norwich Post
• Bury Free Press