Topography


 * The stream ripples and glances over its brown bed, warmed with sunbeams; by its bank the green flags wave and rustle, and all about the meadows shine in pure gold of buttercups. The hawthorn hedges are a mass of gleaming blossom, which scents the breeze. There above rises the heath, yellow mantled with gorse and beyond, if I walk for an hour or two, I shall come out upon the sandy cliffs of Suffolk, and look over the northern sea.
 * __George Gissing: //‘The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft’//__

In these three sentences George Gissing summarises the essence of Halesworth’s setting as envisaged from the Town Bridge, where the northern tributary of the River Blyth finally cuts its way free of Suffolk’s great western Clay Plateau to seek the coast at Southwold. This relatively small river runs due east from Halesworth to join the main channel of the Blyth just outside the town, to continue through a broad expanse of drained marshy pasture bordered by the low sandy hills of Blyford and Wenhaston. At Blythburgh the valley becomes a tidal marsh with broad mudflats, and the river eventually enters the sea at Southwold Quay.

//Fig. 1 Topographic diagram of Blything Hundred. //

The development of Halesworth in modern times cannot be understood without reference to the topography of this part of Suffolk, particularly the river valleys, which cut the land into east-west segments. In this connection, the town is part of a larger pattern of human settlement that from the earliest of times has been dominated by the complex drainage system of the River Blyth (Fig 2.1).

//Blything Hundred// In fact, Halesworth’s topographic situation is reflected in its ancient political position towards the centre of the Blything Hundred, about 10 miles from the coast. The Hundred is an ancient sub-division of the county occupying precisely seven veins of the Blyth that have carved a broad arc into the glacial plateau clays of High Suffolk. This clay plateau is at its highest (about 55 metres) and flattest along a part of the western watershed, which separates the parishes of Ubbeston (Blything Hundred) and Laxfield (Hoxne Hundred). As inhabitants of the Hundred, Halesworth families have an historical continuity with the Saxon people, or tribe, that had its capital at Blythburgh. In this connection, 'Blything' is equated with 'people of the Blyth', a designation that may well go further back in time to a coastal sub-division of land held by the Iron Age Iceni. Blythburgh is the site of the Hundred's 'moot hall' and first came to historical prominence as the religious centre of a branch of the important Wuffinga kingship centred on Sutton Hoo. This royal connection is evident from the Christian burial at Blythburgh of King Ana in 654. It is recorded as having a market in 1086 and in this respect its community had a functional significance equal to the other Domesday economic centres of Suffolk, which were at Kelsale, Dunwich, Ipswich, Stowmarket, Eye, Hoxne, Bungay, and Beccles.

Blything Hundred is a well-defined territory, stretching from the Hundred River at Kessingland south to another Hundred River, which separates Thorpeness from Aldeburgh. Although the old ways and skills of the Blything may no longer be part of daily life, traditions of the earlier people of the river valleys are still embedded within the ancient topographical features of plateau, river and stream, which give the lands a powerful sanctity. In general, the Hundred boundary follows the contours that define the Blyth watershed, but at some places it is marked by streams (becks), which are also parish boundaries. The western valleys of the Blyth descend from the fringe of the sparsely populated plateau settlements on the boundary, and are characterised by having relatively steep, jagged, water-eroded sides, through which minor roads follow narrow gullies. In relation to their size, relatively small watercourses occupy these gullies, an indication that they were cut by the flows of much larger volumes of water in the past. Some of these gullies (locally named 'gulls') probably represent old melt-water channels of the last glaciation. In this respect, the Blyth river system delineates a late glacial landscape, with the land divided into several water-cut ridges running from west to east. Although this coastal area was no doubt attractive to the first post-glacial settlers, the corrugated terrain has always been a barrier to long distance north-south communication through its settlements.

Towards the coast beyond Halesworth, streams cut through sands and gravels (the Sandlings), which some believe were deposited from a south-running ancestor of the River Rhine. The outlets of all the rivers, from Kessingland to Aldeburgh, are partially blocked by sand and shingle bars, and at the coast they are separated from one another by soft cliffs undergoing rapid erosion. Safe havens are at a premium for coastal trade. Occasional woods, copses, small fields and tree lined hedgerows, considerably enhance the local character of an intensively used landscape, which, in the 11th century, was the most densely peopled region in England, with Suffolk having more than four hundred of its churches and the main patterns of county settlement already set out.

Historically, Halesworth seems not to have had an important political position in the communities of the East Anglian coastal belt. It is just one of many irregular-shaped parishes that are tightly packed within the Blyth watershed (Fig 2.2). Although there are archaeological signs of occupation in the town going back to Palaeolithic times, there is no evidence for Halesworth having been a major settlement in pre-Roman, Roman or Saxon periods. However, the site of the present church within an ovoid precinct could denote an early Christian enclosure. A circular or curvilinear boundary is a feature of early Christian church/chapel sites in Britain’s Celtic West. Also, in this context, a short distance to the southwest is the settlement of Walpole; the prefix ‘WAL’ coupled with ‘PWL’ (lake) may denote a British (Welsh) settlement surviving in what became a predominantly Anglo-Saxon area. The Norman overlords did not fortify Halesworth, and their local administrative centre for this part of the Shire was just outside the Blything Hundred, at Carlton.

Fig 2 Parishes of Blything Hundred: pre 1855

//Communications// From early times, it appears that the settlement of Halesworth became important as a stopover point in an old communication network extending from east to west across the clay plateau to the coast. The community lies on a branch off the main highway that follows the Waveney valley from Bury to Yarmouth. This branch turns off towards Halesworth at the market town of Harleston. As a minor route it crosses the Waveney to traverse the great flat open spaces of the glacial plateau at Metfield, where it enters the Hundred, and then follows the northern-most tributary of the Blyth down to Halesworth. After crossing Halesworth Bridge north of the church and market place, the road turns along the northern sandy edge of the main valley of the Blyth through Blyford to Southwold, a rare haven on the North Sea coastal shipping route between Yarmouth and Ipswich. This particular road from Harleston to Southwold, is evident on the earliest route map of the area (dotted line; Fig 2.3). It has lateral branches at Halesworth, which go north to Bungay, and south, via Walpole and Peasenhall, to Yoxford.

Fig. 3 Kirby’s road map of 1736 The remarkable thing about Kirby’s road map, compared with modern maps is the large proportion of villages that stand in isolation off the main roads. This is reflection of the poor quality of communications and the self-sufficiency of the communities. A statute of 1555 made the parish responsible for highways and this continued until about 1663. It was then that an Act of Parliament decreed that a ‘Turnpike Trusts’ should be set up. Until then, surfaces were not too important because roads were only used by packhorses and pedestrians. By 1770, 519 trusts had been established countrywide. Local landowners, merchants, parish officials and farmers were persuaded to become involved because it was to their benefit to have improved communications.

The river at Halesworth is, even today, prone to flooding, and before the marshes to the east of the town were drained for grazing, the modern way south from the town to the main London highway was through Walpole to Yoxford. In those times, Bramfield was reached by a local ‘common lane’, from church to church. This lane was then just a minor parochial link between the two places. The situation only changed with the creation of the Bungay/ Halesworth/ Darsham turnpike, which, after passing through Halesworth, turned left at the top of Pound St to Bramfield. From Bramfield it continued along a track called Beech Lane, which had been improved by the trust for wheeled traffic to access the main coastal turnpike from Yarmouth to Ipswich at Darsham. (Fig 2.4). It is thought that the flint-walled house at the junction with the A12 was built for the toll keeper.

Fig. 4 Turnpike roads in North East Suffolk The economic stimulus given to trade by the turnpike movement cannot be underestimated. For example, Arthur Young, with the interests of the countryside always at heart, rejoiced to note, that when a good turnpike road was made it opened out new markets. New ideas circulated through the come-and-go of more frequent travel, and rents in the district soon rose with the improvement of agriculture. On the other hand, he saw and deplored the beginning of that 'rural exodus', which has been going on ever since, at a pace, which matches the speed of improved communications. In his //Farmer's Letters// (ed, 1771) he wrote:


 * //"To find fault with good roads would have the appearance of paradox and absurdity; but it is nevertheless a fact that giving the power of expeditious traveling depopulates the Kingdom. Young men and women in the country villages fix their eyes on London as the last stage of their hope. They enter into service in the country for little else but to raise money enough to go to London, which was no such easy matter when a stage coach was four or five days in creeping an hundred miles. The fare and the expenses ran high. But now! A country fellow, one hundred miles from London, jumps on a coach box in the morning, and for eight or ten shillings gets to town by night, which makes a material difference; besides rendering the going up and down so easy, the numbers who have seen London are increased tenfold, and of course ten times the boasts are sounded in the ears of country fools to induce them to quit their healthy clean fields for a region of dirt, stink and noise".//

However, without improving communications neither the in­dustrial nor the agricultural revolution could have taken place.

Fig. 5 Settlement of Halesworth in relation to the 50 ft contour of the upper valley of the River Blyth, and its crossing points. The picture of Halesworth as an out-of-the-way focus for pedestrian and horse-borne travel was actually reinforced by the granting of a market in the 13th century. This weekly market determined its local inward-looking mercantile function for the next five centuries. The road connection with Southwold provided its life-blood, which was trade with the coastal shipping route between Newcastle and London. The peculiar historical situation of Halesworth, off to one side of the main east-west routes into East Anglia, also accounts for the fact that, today, in order to reach the town from the main road network, the traveller either takes a winding dog-leg route across the clay plateau from Harleston, or, if coming from the south, has to make a sharp turn to the west off a relatively uninhabited stretch of the A12 at Darsham.

The position of the settlement of Halesworth at the junction of the east-west and north south communications through Blything has been critical to its history and economic development. The key to understanding the town’s strategic position is the 50 ft contour on which St Mary’s church and the market place, as the first point of settlement, are positioned. This is illustrated diagrammatically in Fig 2.5. The 50ft contour delineates the flood plain of the river at this point, and highlights the fact that the largest flows of water descend from the clay plateau via the southern valley. The roads along both the north and south valleys immediately to the east and west of Halesworth more or less follow the line of the 50 ft contour. As indicated above, the main north south route from Yoxford to Bungay crossed the Southern Blyth at Walpole Bridge. Bramfield Bridge marks the site of a crossing of the ancient common lane that ran from Halesworth church to Bramfield. As pointed out above, the modern road to the bridge appears to have been a later development of a Turnpike Trust to speed traffic to the main London Turnpike at Darsham. Routes from the northwest, northeast, and north, focus on Halesworth Bridge below the church. This bridge marks the narrowest point of the flood plain for crossing the Blyth, and the road from Harleston takes this route from the church, down the Thoroughfare to the northern bank, where it rises steeply again from the bridge up to the 50 ft contour. The approach to the bridge via the Thoroughfare was constructed over marshy ground. In this respect, it was reported in the 1951 Festival of Britain brochure for the town, that during excavations in the Thoroughfare, when pipes for a sewer were being laid, huge quantities of peat were brought to the surface. The town’s marshy heritage is still evident in that the river is prone to flash flooding. The last major flood episode occurred on 12th October 1993, when the river overflowed its banks and extended from the bridge some 200 metres up the road to the south, flooding the car park, the park, and properties on either side of the Thoroughfare.