Barton Mills

Barton Mills is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. The village is on the south bank of the River Lark. According to Eilert Ekwall the meaning of the village name is 'corn farm by the mill'.

Village sign in Barton Mills
Barton Mills
Barton Mills is located in Suffolk
Barton Mills
Barton Mills
Location within Suffolk
Population1,052 (2011) [1]
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townBury St Edmunds
Postcode districtIP28

The village was originally called Barton Parva (Little Barton).[2][3] The name changed to Barton Mills in the eighteenth century.

The Domesday Book of 1086 records the population of the village in 1086 to be 22 households.[4]

The village is near the Fiveways Roundabout, a busy junction where the A11 London to Norwich trunk road, the A1065 towards North Norfolk and the A1101 (Long Sutton (Lincolnshire) to Bury St. Edmunds) roads meet.

The village was once the holiday retreat for Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, and there is a plaque on the wall outside his country home, The Dhoon, in the main street.[5]

Barton Mills hosts a biannual Scarecrow Festival, held in July. The main road through the village is closed to traffic (except to residents) during the two-day-long festival, which includes musical bands, food, dancing, car boot sales at the local playing fields and viewing scarecrows created by local residents. This festival has been featured in the Guinness Book of World Records, boasting the most scarecrows ever made at any one time.[6] The record is currently held by the National Forest Adventure Farm near Burton on Trent.[7]

Church

Barton Mills is served by the Church of St Mary as its parish church, a building dating back 800 years.[8]

Giacomo Savelli, who became Pope Honorius IV in 1285 was rector of Barton Mills church at the time of his election to the papacy, although there is no evidence that he ever visited England.[9][10]

References
  1. UK Census (2011). "Local Area Report – Barton Mills Parish (E04009140)". Nomis. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
  2. Barbara Vesey, The Hidden Places of East Anglia: Including Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, p135, (Travel Publishing Ltd), 3 Apr 2003
  3. George Kearsley, Kearsley's traveller's entertaining guide through Great Britain; or, A description of the principal cross-roads, p14, 1801
  4. "Barton [Mills] | Domesday Book". opendomesday.org. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
  5. "East Anglian Film Archive: Look East: Alexander Fleming's Country Home, 1960". www.eafa.org.uk. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
  6. "SCARECROWS AND SMILEY FACES". Website of robertleader!. 2 May 2017. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
  7. "Largest display of scarecrows". Guinness World Records. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
  8. "Barton Mills Church".
  9. "The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church".
  10. Edgar Powell. List of Rectors with sundry documents relating to church matters at Barton Mills (PDF).
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