Needham Market

Needham Market is a town in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. Nearby villages include Barking, Darmsden, Badley and Creeting St Mary. The town of Needham, Massachusetts, was named after Needham Market.[2]

Needham Market
Hawks Mill, Needham Market now converted into flats
Needham Market is located in Suffolk
Needham Market
Needham Market
Location within Suffolk
Population4,528 (2011 Census)[1]
OS grid referenceTM090548
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townIPSWICH
Postcode districtIP6
Dialling code01449
PoliceSuffolk
FireSuffolk
AmbulanceEast of England
UK Parliament

History
The Old Town Hall

It initially grew around the wool combing industry, until the onset of the plague, which swept the town from 1663 to 1665. To prevent the spread of the disease, the town was chained at either end, which succeeded in its task but at the cost of two-thirds of the populace. The town did not recover for nearly two hundred years, with the canalisation of the River Gipping in the late 18th Century and the introduction of the railway. Modern Needham Market contains two road names that are linked to the plague. Chainhouse Road, named after the chains that ran across the East end of the town. The Causeway, is a modern variation of 'the corpseway' so called because of the route that plague victims were transported out of town, to neighbouring Barking church for interment.[3]

Notable buildings

Notable buildings in the town include:

Sport and leisure

Needham Market has a Non-League football club Needham Market F.C. who play at Bloomfields, they have been very successful over recent years after reaching the semi-finals of the FA Vase.[7]

The town is on the route of the Dunwich Dynamo annual cycle ride.

Needham Lake (a former gravel pit) provides leisure facilities and a wildlife habitat.[8]

Transport

The East Anglia Main Line railway runs through the town, with Needham Market railway station providing trains to Ipswich and Cambridge. Needham Market railway station is a very small unstaffed station and is managed by Greater Anglia. The A14 (although then the A45) once ran directly through Needham Market, but a bypass was built in the 1970s. This has left the town with good road links to the surrounding area, but with less traffic than before.

Notable people

Notable people from Needham include:

References
  1. "Town Population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 25 August 2016.
  2. Rosenberg, Chaim M.; The Needham Historical Society (2012). Knitters of Needham. Arcadia. p. 17. ISBN 9780738591094.
  3. "Weird Suffolk: Needham Market Corpse Way". East Anglian Daily Times. 30 July 2018. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  4. Historic England. "Church of St. John the Baptist (1254254)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  5. Historic England. "The Limes Hotel (1253662)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  6. Historic England. "Old Town Hall, Needham Market (1253656)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  7. "Club History - Needham Market Football Club". Needhammarketfc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 8 October 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2012.
  8. "Needham Lake". Mid Suffolk District Council. Archived from the original on 6 April 2013. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
  9. Whitmore, Greg (4 April 2022). "June Brown: a life in pictures". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
  10. "Baroness Scott of Needham Market | People". Libdems.org.uk. Retrieved 8 August 2012.


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