An 'Issues Report’, was recently sent out by the Planing (Policy) Division of the District Council and the Society’s view invited on the changes likely to affect the environment we live in. Your Executive Committee, led by the Chairman and Vice-Chair, has replied on behalf of the Society.

The Issues Report tries to identify what Babergh District Council considers to be the major planning issues facing the area for the period up to 2011. The District Council will consider our comments, along with other responses, before it drafts the Babergh Local Plan Alteration No.2 later this year. Nothing has been decided at this stage.

ALTERATION No.2 is needed

The document sets the scene for Hadleigh as follows:

In spite of being the second largest settlement in the district, Hadleigh only has a population of about 7,000. The town centre itself provides a wide variety of shopping, employment, social and recreational opportunities, all set within an historic environment.

Proposed are:

If this site is not needed for the expansion of the Hadleigh Health Centre, it could be developed for housing, which would be consistent with the government's desire to recycle urban land for housing purposes.

A few weeks ago you will have read in the East Anglian Daily Times (based on a press release from Tesco) of their planning application for a 27,500 sq.ft. supermarket on the site between the river, High Street and Pound Lane. When we attempted to view the plans at Babergh we were told that they had been withdrawn for "technical reasons" involving certification.

This week there has been some activity in the High Street with photographs being taken over the roof of Sun Court from a very high mobile crane. Surveyors have also been making measurements and drawings of the outside.

It is nearly two weeks since the plans were first lodged and they are still not available for viewing. However we have seen some of the proposals that were recently sent by the developers to the owners of Sun Court.

The proposed supermarket is 27,500 sq.ft. in area, and about 150 feet behind the gardens of the High Street houses between Sun Court and Bull’s. The car park for 217 vehicles is, at its nearest point, only about 30 feet from the river.

The road entrance for Cars and lorries would be between Cinch and 111 High Street with roughly half the Cinch building being demolished to make room for it. The remaining part of the building would be adapted to provide a pedestrian access via a short arcade. The side elevation shows a three-storey building.

The plans show the High Street narrowed on either side of the entrance, presumably to make it easier for traffic to get in and out of the supermarket (according to Suffolk County Council’s survey in 1997 this is already the busiest road in Hadleigh). We presume the parking on both sides of the High Street at that point will have to be removed.

These are only proposals: Tesco have not yet bought the land but have ‘Options to purchase’, as confirmed on a copy of the planning application.

Once the plans have been registered with Babergh and are available for public viewing we will be in a better position to comment fully on them and will keep you informed.

Several people have suggested that the whole town should be consulted on the desirability of another supermarket in the town. Accordingly we decided to conduct a survey and the Hadleigh Community News has helped by distributing our questionnaire. We’ve had 127 back so far; there are several places that they can be returned to: please remember to return yours.

It was a good turn out to hear Sue Andrews, with the promise of some revelation of Hadleigh’s colourful past. If there were a few expecting to hear of nothing but sex they might have been disappointed, as we were introduced to several of the other activities over which the church court had jurisdiction.

Drawing on the two brief periods for which there are records of this court, around 1640 and around 1670, Sue illustrated the life of the town just before the Civil War and following the restoration. Since the parish was a Peculiar, Hadleigh’s court had an unusual status, with the Dean being responsible directly to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The town at that time had not long had its charter and still had a strong industry of clothiers although Lavenham’s cloth trade was by then in decline. The population was only 1,500 and the plague in one year took 200 of those.

We heard of how the church court’s roles spanned the birth, marriage and death of every citizen to a much greater extent than today, and how citizens were much more likely to have to attest to the conduct of their neighbours.

Turning for a moment from the primary subject we heard how a large body of cases concerned failure to attend church, and another major role concerned probate. Returning to the main theme, a significant proportion of the court’s cases concerned pre and post marital relations, and the best recourse for those accused would be to find neighbours prepared to confirm your innocence. Cross-examination in court might be one thing but midwives, who were licensed by the court, were expected to enquire of the paternity of the child at the height of the labour.

Our History Group members who know just how long it can take to work through the archived documents that have survived will sympathise with Peter Northeast who felt better able to tackle the mediaeval wills of Hadleigh because of the action of a servant in 1618. His fire destroyed the records belonging to the Hadleigh Peculiar.

The 49 documents which survive to this day are those that were proved at the Archbishop’s court because the estate extended beyond Hadleigh. With only 25% making a will at all and most being handled by the Dean’s court, these survivors represented the upper crust of the population.

You may remember our History Group introducing us last year to Archdeacon Pykynham’s will in the context of Hadleigh’s Charities. This time we learned more details of this wealthy cleric, whom we should now learn to pronounce as Pickinham. One thousand requiem masses didn’t come cheap by the standards of a 6d daily wage.

We not only learned more about Hadleigh and were reminded of the arithmetic of ‘old money’ but also learned of the distinction between wills and testaments. Altogether it was an entertaining but educational experience.

The members of the History Group, having recovered from the preparation of last November’s presentation have been thinking about our next project.

We have decided that there is a need for a new book about our town’s history, suitable for sale to visitors to the town.

We hope to start with what is known about the Celts, Romans and Saxons, all of whom seem to have had a presence here and to bring the story right up in to this century.

We plan two versions, one aimed at the casual reader and one fully annotated with sources for anyone wanting to make a serious study of our town’s history.

We intend to concentrate on one chapter at a time to gradually build the book and I am sure all the members of the group will learn a lot along the way.

Jan Byrne, the Vice Chair of the Society was born a cockney, spent her formative years in North London, and moved with Joe to Hadleigh High Street in 1961. She had trained as a General Nurse and when the children started school she worked for a few years as a staff nurse at the Ipswich hospital.

When the children were older she trained to be a Health Visitor, then spent about twenty years visiting young families in Ipswich. From 1990 she was a manager in the Community Nursing service. For some years she was the Vice Chair of her professional organisation and was elected to represent the profession on the English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting. She was also a member of the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting.

She joined the Hadleigh Evening Women’s Institute in its early days and is now its President. The W.I. may have a "Jam and Jerusalem" image but it educates (Jan says "Joe doesn’t now know what a jar of shop jam tastes like"), it influences government policies and she enjoys the relaxation of being in the company of friends.

Joe and Jan joined the Society at its inauguration and have been on the committee for much of the time. Jan was Chairman in the 1980’s.

She is now a member of the Society’s history group and since retirement has worked with Joe in the Town’s Archives where they are members of the group who are re-cataloguing the collection and putting it on a computer. They hope the Archives will be open to the public for one afternoon a week later this year. Having helped to raise money to build the swimming pool in the seventies she now has time to benefit almost every morning.

Venue: Hadleigh Old Town Hall, 8^pm. Please note that we now use the side entrance behind the Corn Exchange.

If you know someone who is interested in joining the Executive Committee don’t hold back. We’re always keen to welcome ‘new blood’. There’s a form at the back of this newsletter for you to make nominations.

At our Web address (see Files Group Contact, below) you can find this and many past newsletters, with photos in their original colours, an extensive list of past events going back over ten years, and their posters.

We’ve recently added some more newsletters from 10 years ago, including articles on Hadleigh Aerodrome and the Hadleigh Gang.

Published by

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
TO BE HELD AT HADLEIGH TOWN HALL
ON THURSDAY 24^th JUNE 1999 AT 8 pm.

Society members are invited to make nominations for service on the Society’s Executive Committee for the year following the Annual General Meeting in the following capacities:

Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Treasurer or Secretary

or as one of six Committee members.

All posts are honorary and seconded nominations must reach the Society’s Chairman by 10^th June 1999.

To: Chairman, The Hadleigh Society, c/o 49 Angel Street, Hadleigh, Suffolk, (Telephone: 01473 822063)