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Needham-Market

NEEDHAM-MARKET, a chapelry, and formerly a market-town, in the parish of Barking, union and hundred of Bosmere and Claydon, E. division of Suffolk, 8½ miles (N. W. by N.) from Ipswich, and 74 (N. E.) from London; containing 1353 inhabitants. The town is situated on low ground, on the road between Ipswich and Bury; it is tolerably well built, and the inhabitants are supplied with water from springs. The surrounding country is pleasant, and abounds with agreeable walks; a lake of about 9 acres, called Bosmere, gives name to the hundred. The manufacture of glue is carried on, and there are several flock-mills. The Stow-Market and Ipswich navigation passes along the north-east boundary of the chapelry, and is crossed by a bridge leading towards Stonham; near the town is also a station of the Ipswich and Bury railway, three miles from the Stow-Market station. A fair for toys is held on October 28th. Constables are appointed at the court leet and baron of the lord of the manor, and pettysessions are held monthly. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £91; patron, the Rector of Barking. The chapel, built about 1450, and dedicated to St. John the Baptist, is in the later English style, with a belfry of wood. There are places of worship for the Society of Friends, and Independents. Dr. Priestley first settled at Needham-Market, with a small congregation, on a salary of £30 a year. The free school for the parish of Barking was founded here in 1652, by Francis Theobald, Esq., who endowed it with property now producing £65 per annum. In the town is also an almshouse, endowed with land now producing about £18 per annum; eight women reside in it, four of whom receive the above endowment, and four have the dividends of £500 three and a half per cent. consols., bequeathed in 1824 by Samuel Alexander, Esq.: the house was neatly rebuilt in 1836. A house of recovery was erected in 1744, by Ambrose Crowley, Esq., for persons attacked with small-pox; and there is land yielding about £50 per annum, for distribution among the poor.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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