Needham Market

Needham Market
Suffolk
Hawks Mill, Needham Market
Location
Grid reference:	TM090548
Location:	52°9’6"N, 1°3’22"E
Data
Population:	4,574  (2001)
Post town:	Ipswich
Postcode:	IP6
Dialling code:	01449
Local Government
Council:	Mid Suffolk
Parliamentary constituency:	Bury St Edmunds

Needham Market is a tiny town in Suffolk.

Notable buildings in the town include:

• The 15th century parish church, originally a chapel of ease for the parish of Barking (with a unique double-hammerbeam roof).
• The mediæval Limes Hotel
• The Stuart-era school.

Needham Lake (a former gravel pit) provides leisure facilities and a wildlife habitat. Needham market middle school - Public free school

History

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, until 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.

Sport

• Football: Needham Market FC, who play at Bloomfields

Transport

The East Anglia Main Line railway runs through the town, with Needham Market railway station providing trains to Ipswich, Cambridge and Peterborough. 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 choking traffic than before.

Outside links

• Needham Market Town Council