A Short History of Beautiful Sudbury

A Short History of Beautiful Sudbury. . Sudbury is set in the heart of the beautiful Stour Valley. the famous landscape which inspired pointers Thomas Gainsborough and John Constable. Much of the valley from Dedham to Sudbury is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty., The first written record of Sudbury dates from AD 798 when an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the death of Bishop Aelthun in Sudbury. We can assume that the settlement was already a place of some importance if the Bishop was staying here., The Saxon settlement continued to grow and by the time of William the Conqueror's Domesday Book of 1086 it was recorded as having a market, a mint and a church. That first church was St Gregory's, rebuilt in the 14th and 15th century, and a wonderful example of Perpendicular architecture., The property of Sudbury was built on the medieval cloth trade, which mode the town a busy market centre. In the late Norman period the growth of the town led to the building of All Saints church, near the main river crossing of the Stour to the south-west of the town centre. In 1200 a stone bridge was built to replace the ford, linking Sudbury with Ballingdon on the for bank., In the following century Elizabeth de Burgh, grand daughter of Edward I developed Market Hill as a centre for commerce, with a third major church St Peters as its focus. This church was begun as a chapel of ease for St Gregory's, but later became a parish church in its own right., The wealth of the medieval cloth merchants is reflected in some of the picturesque timber-framed buildings that can still be found in Stour Street and elsewhere in the old town., Demand for heavy wooden cloth declined in the 16th Century and the weavers of Sudbury turned to producing lighter fabrics such as bays, says, crepes and cotton bunting. Much of the bunting was supplied to the Royal Navy for flags and some was even seized by American rebels to make the first 'Stars and Stripes'., Sudbury's trade and prosperity was boosted in the 18th century when the River Stour was dug out to form a Navigation, creating a direct transportation link so the sea Two of the former warehouses can be seen in Quay Lane, housing the Quay Theatre and the Stour Navigation Trust., The most famous native of Sudbury was artist Thomas Gainsborough, who was born at Gainsborough Street in 1727. The house is now a major museum, with perhaps the single best displays of Gainsborough's art in the world. A statue of Gainsborough stands at the top of Market Hill in front of St Peter's., Later in the 19th Century, the manufacture of silk become a major industry. Today Sudbury is home to four major silk companies and can claim to be the silk manufacturing centre of the UK.