West Stow, Suffolk

Historical Description

Stow, West, a parish in Suffolk, on the river Lark, 4 miles NW of Bury St Edmunds, and 2½ W from Ingham station on the Bury and Thetford branch of the G.E.R. Post town, Bury St Edmunds; money order office, FIempton; telegraph office, Culford. Acreage, 2941; population of the civil parish, 193; of the ecclesiastical, with Wordwell, 238. The manor, with all the land, belongs to Earl Cadogan. West Stow Hall, now occupied by a farm steward, is a curious building of brick dating from the 16th century. The living is a rectory, united with Wordwell, in the diocese of Ely; joint gross value, £269 with residence. The church is a Gothic building of stone and flint, consisting of chancel, nave, S porch, and an embattled western tower. Chimney Mills, about a mile from the village, was formerly a parish, but has been annexed to Cnlford, and now forms part of that parish. It consists of one dwelling-house and a mill, has an area of 23 acres, and a population of 8 persons.

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.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for West Stow from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Stow, West (St. Mary))

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of West Stow 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