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Meandering Through Time

A Walking Tour of Medieval Lavenham

By Craig Lancto

Passing through Cambridge, we remembered the quaint Suffolk village where we had enjoyed so many lovely afternoon teas, mere decades ago. On a whim, we swerved toward Bury St. Edmunds and points south, hoping for a quick visit to the ancient half-timbered buildings, some gnarled in their antiquity, others rambling and showing evidence of centuries of repair and renovation.                        

We followed the curving road over rolling Constable countryside, until, rounding a final curve, the medieval village of Lavenham appeared, a specter of the prosperity that wool brought to “this scepter'd isle” more than five hundred years ago.

The narrow streets were clearly intended for foot traffic, rather than motor vehicles, so we parked  in the lot behind the visitors kiosk on the High Street, where we learned that we could rent an audio cassette guide to what we consider the most picturesque town in England.

We walked the short distance to Lavenham Pharmacy where the friendly clerk explained how to use the device and set out for a guided meander through the lanes and streets of the fourteenth wealthiest town in England — in 1524. That decade would end with a classic good news/ bad news turn of events, as the Dutch weavers in Colchester became fashionable and Lavenham’s fortunes abruptly declined. While bad news for Lavenham, the sudden end of prosperity also meant the end of the town’s development, so that we can visit a town that probably looks very much as it did five hundred years ago.

Lavenham was a thriving town in the middle of the thirteenth century, when it was granted its market charter. Today the Market Place is a car park surrounded by medieval and Tudor buildings.

The restored sixteenth century Guildhall dominates the south side of the Market Place. Now the half-timber structure contains exhibits that celebrate the town’s history, particularly the wool trade that paid for the marvelous timber frame buildings that still stand. Now owned by the National Trust, the Guildhall has served as town hall, a jail, and a workhouse for poor children who spun wool and flax to earn their keep.                   

Across the square to the south, stands the alluring Angel Inn, {place Angel Inn photo here} first licensed in 1420,  where we enjoyed a robust and flavorful lunch in the award-winning restaurant, nearly as much as our view of the exposed ceiling beams, the cozy pub, (Good Pub Guide pub of the year in 1997) and the Market Place.

A row of shops lines the west side of the square, and the Suffolk Preservation Society is tucked into the fourteenth century Little Hall  in the northwest corner, next to the imposing Great House.

But the town is much more than the Market Place, so, with a few anxious glances at the darkening sky, off we went, first to the High Street to marvel at the gamut of colors and styles, pastels and white, bright reds,  half-timbered and medieval, and some with pargeting, the decorative plaster work that was popular among the wealthy merchants in Suffolk during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Then on to Shilling Street to admire the variety of architecture, including the home of Ann and Jane Taylor, best known for writing “The Star,” better known by its first line: “Twinkle, Twinkle....”

We also admired the view from the top of Prentice Street, named after the wool apprentices who boarded there.  Prentice appears to empty into rolling meadows that spread to the horizon from the bottom of the street.              

When the bottom fell out of Lavenham’s wool industry, the town turned for a while to making horsehair products. The factory on Barn Street would become an intriguing footnote to history, becoming the grammar school attended by John Constable and the home of the Winthrop family, one of whom would become the first governor of Massachusetts, another the first governor of Connecticut.

Weavers’ cottages at the bottom of Barn Street face Water Street,  which appears curiously named in that no water is evident anywhere along its length. In the fifteenth century, the buildings on the south side of the street were constructed over culverts that were used in dyeing and fulling cloth, which was then taken across the street to tenter or drying yards where it was stretched on tenter frames with tiny hooks called— you are way ahead of me.

One of the most elaborate buildings in Lavenham is the red herringbone de Vere House, home of the thirteenth Earl of Oxford, who also donated most of the money to build the remarkable parish church of St Peter and St Paul on Church Street.

At the end of  Water Street, the rambling Swan Hotel extends from Lady Street to the High Street. Built in 1400, the hotel, which Frommer’s Guide calls “the best accommodation in Suffolk,”  has expanded to encompass two fifteenth century houses.

With more than 300 listed buildings in Lavenham there is much more to see, but it is, after all, teatime, and that is the Swan Hotel.... 

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