IS IT REALLY FIRDAY?

How time flies when you're having so much fun! It is a wet Friday afternoon in Bury so I have decided to add to the blog. It is only then that I realized that I have done nothing with it since last Sunday. Now the problem is trying to remember what we have done.

On Monday we went to the village of Elmsett (I think). That is the village where my searching has stopped with the wedding of my GGGGG/Grandfather and GGGGG/Gmother in 1742. Once again we were stunned by the age, size and beauty of the Church in such a small community. It also amazing how close together these parishes are. In Australia our small country communities are about 20 or 30 miles apart which I believe is as a result of the old horse coaches needing to change horses at about that distance. I have come to the conclusion that the distance between the churches here is set by the distance people could walk to Church. The above photo of a road sign gives some idea. Polstead, Shelley, Stoke by Nayland and Hadleigh are all relevant to my family history and Hadleigh is quite a large town and not a village in my mind. At Elmsett there is a very interesting monument opposite the Church. It is the 1935 Tithe War Memorial. The history of this is quite unbelievable. It seems that there was a law in England which compelled farmers to pay a 'tithe' to the Church. It also seems that while the term refers to a tenth of income it did not quite happen that way in practice. In the 1920's and 30's there was a very severe recession in agriculture and many farmers were going under. In spite of their failure to make ends meet the tax was still set on previous earnings and could not be met. The Rector was not in the least sympathetic and demanded the full 'tithe'. There was a revolt in one case when attempts were made to take goods and chattels (by a Court order) by force. This became known as the Elmsett Tithe War and the full story makes interesting reading. The local History Group have published a beautiful book of the village history and I have bought a copy.

Our landlord told me a about a very nice tea room/ gift shop/ restaurant at a place called Monks Eleigh (pronounced eily) On Tuesday we decided to try it out for lunch. It is worthy of being recommended. I would suggest you get used to hearing references to it because I think we will be back! After a very pleasant lunch we headed off to the village of Polstead which has also had references in out history. While it does not play a huge part in 'my story' it is a beautiful place and the most beautiful setting for a church we have found so far. The church is on hill with a view looking out over the surrounding countryside. A really lovely setting.

See what I mean.

Also in Polstead I saw a man working in his front yard hedge trimming. His house was one with a thatched roof. I asked the age of the house and he told me that he had had the roof repaired recently and the thatcher said that from the methods used in the construction of the roof he would date the house as being built about 1360. I asked if the roof was a high maintenance thing and he said that it would need servicing again in about 20 years. About the same as a tiled roof. Also the insulation properties of the roof make it much better.

By the Tuesday afternoon Ann had a bit of a sore throat and wasn't too flash on Wednesday so I decided to go into the Suffolk Records Office in Bury. I had to register and then was allowed to search from an amazing collection of records including Census, Parish Records, Wills, and all sorts of other records. And all of this is free of charge. I was like a kid in a lolly shop, I didn't know where to start. I did a bit of research for a few hours without finding anything spectacular but it has certainly got me interested. As someone once said, "I'll be back". I am working on a particular anomaly regarding my G/G/Grandfathers family. In my 'tree' and several others there is a 'son' and I now think he is not a son but a nephew. Some day I will sort it out. (I hope)

Yesterday (Thursday) we left home with the intention of visiting the village of Chattisham which is quite significant in my research. We set Deidre to take us there. She was determined to take us up the motorway and we wanted to use 'back roads' so we did our own thing. Poor old Deidre was continually telling us that she was 'recalculating' until either we got to a position where the motorway was out of the equation or she gave up! On the way we had a detour to Monks Eleigh! When we got to Chattisham we found the church is in the process of having major restoration work done. As a result everything inside is either removed or covered. Again it was no doubt a beautiful Church but unlike the others we have visited it was much smaller. I guess that it would be very 'cozy' with 100 people in there. All in all, with the back roads, the morning tea at Monks Eleigh and the visit to Chattisham, it was a pleasant day.

Today we had another walk around it town, some shopping and of course morning tea at Harriets! As I complete this the rain seems to have eased and the forecast seems better for the weekend. On Monday we are going down to London and will be there until Thursday. I will let you know about it all later.

Dave and Ann.