Leiston ( ) is an English town in the East Suffolk

non-metropolitan district Non-metropolitan districts, or colloquially "shire districts", are a type of local government district in England. As created, they are sub-divisions of non-metropolitan counties (colloquially ''shire counties'') in a two-tier arrangement. Non- ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include ...

, near Saxmundham and

Aldeburgh Aldeburgh ( ) is a coastal town in the county of Suffolk, England. Located to the north of the River Alde. Its estimated population was 2,276 in 2019. It was home to the composer Benjamin Britten and remains the centre of the international Ald ...

, about from the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

coast, north-east of

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...

and north-east of London. The town had a population of 5,508 at the 2011 Census.

History

The 14th-century remains of Leiston Abbey lie north-west of the town.Leiston Abbey
English Heritage. Retrieved 30 March 2011. Leiston thrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a manufacturing town, dominated by

Richard Garrett & Sons Richard Garrett & Sons was a manufacturer of agricultural machinery, steam engines and trolleybuses. Their factory was Leiston Works, in Leiston, Suffolk, England. The company was founded by Richard Garrett in 1778. The company was acti ...

, owners of Leiston Works, which boasted the world's first flow assembly line, for the manufacture of

portable steam engine A portable engine is an engine, either a steam engine or an internal combustion engine, that sits in one place while operating (providing power to machinery), but (unlike a stationary engine) is portable and thus can be easily moved from one wor ...

s. The firm also made steam

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most commo ...

s and a huge variety of cast and machined metal products, including

munitions Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weap ...

during both

world war A world war is an international conflict which involves all or most of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World WarI (1914 ...

s. The works closed in 1981 and the site was reused as a mixture of housing, flats and industrial sites. The Long Shop Museum, showing the history, vehicles and products of the works, remains as a heritage tourist attraction. In 1927, A. S. Neill relocated Summerhill School from

Lyme Regis Lyme Regis is a town in west Dorset, England, west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset– Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and beaches on the He ...

to Leiston. This was the first major "free school" – referring to freedom in education. Children are not required to attend classes and discipline is meted by pupil self-government meetings. Summerhill has inspired a large "free school" movement and more recently, democratic schools in several countries. The school occupies the former mansion of Richard Garrett, owner of Leiston Works. In the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

RAF Leiston Royal Air Force Leiston or more simply RAF Leiston is a former Royal Air Force station located northwest of Leiston and south of Theberton, Suffolk, England. History USAAF use Originally intended as a fighter station for RAF Fighter Comman ...

, north-west of the town in the neighbouring village of

Theberton Theberton is a village in Suffolk, England. It is located north-east of Saxmundham, and miles north of Leiston, its post town. History During the First World War, a German Zeppelin airship, L48, was shot down near Theberton at 02:00 on t ...

, sent fighter squadrons of the American 357th Fighter Group to fight the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...

. Famous American test pilot and fighter ace General

Chuck Yeager Brigadier General Charles Elwood Yeager ( , February 13, 1923December 7, 2020) was a United States Air Force officer, flying ace, and record-setting test pilot who in October 1947 became the first pilot in history confirmed to have exceeded the ...

(later, first to break the sound barrier) flew out of RAF Leiston. The Friends of Leiston Airfield hold a memorial service and flying display at the end of May each year, with veterans and their families attending.

Notable people

In birth order: *

Ranulf de Glanvill Ranulf de Glanvill (''alias'' Glanvil, Glanville, Granville, etc., died 1190) was Chief Justiciar of England during the reign of King Henry II (1154–89) and was the probable author of ''Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Anglie'' ( ...

(died 1190), Chief Justiciar of England, founded Leiston Abbey for White Canons in 1183. * Richard Garrett (1755–1839) founded the engineering company Richard Garrett and Sons in Leiston. *

Edward Buckton Lamb Edward Buckton Lamb (1806–1869) was a British architect who exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1824. Lamb was labelled a 'Rogue Gothic Revivalist', and his designs were roundly criticised for breaking with convention, especially by '' The E ...

(1806–1869), architect, designed St Margaret's Church in Leiston. *

Newson Garrett Newson Garrett (31 July 1812 – 4 May 1893) was a maltster, instrumental in the revival of the town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, of which he became mayor at the end of his life. Two of his daughters, Millicent and Elizabeth, became famous as wome ...

(1812–1893), born in Leiston, built up the malting business whose premises were converted into the

Snape Maltings Snape Maltings is an arts complex on the banks of the River Alde at Snape, Suffolk, England. It is best known for its concert hall, which is one of the main sites of the annual Aldeburgh Festival. The original purpose of the Maltings was the m ...

concert hall. * A. S. Neill (1883–1973), Scottish educationalist, founded the progressive Summerhill School in 1924 and moved it to Leiston in 1927. *

M. E. Aldrich Rope M. E. Aldrich Rope (Margaret Edith Rope) (29 July 1891 – 9 March 1988) was an English stained-glass artist in the Arts and Crafts movement tradition active between 1910 and 1964. She was a cousin of Margaret Agnes Rope of Shrewsbury, another ...

(1891–1988), born and died in Leiston, was a stained-glass artist in the

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

tradition. * Paxton Chadwick (1903–1961), artist and illustrator, taught at Summerhill and was Communist chair of Leiston Town Council.

Governance

There is an

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected to ...

named Leiston, with a population at the 2011 census of 6,360.

Economy and community

Since the closure of Garrett's, the town's economy has been dominated by two nuclear power stations on the coast at

Sizewell Sizewell is an English fishing hamlet in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It belongs to the civil parish of Leiston and lies on the North Sea coast just north of the larger holiday village of Thorpeness, between the coastal towns ...

: the now decommissioned

Magnox Magnox is a type of nuclear power/production reactor that was designed to run on natural uranium with graphite as the moderator and carbon dioxide gas as the heat exchange coolant. It belongs to the wider class of gas-cooled reactors. The n ...

reactors of Sizewell A and the more modern Pressurised Water Reactor of Sizewell B. A number of smaller companies operate from industrial areas within the town. Leiston's High Street serves as the business and market hub of the surrounding agricultural district. The town's facilities include a post office, library, banks, pubs and a range of shops and other services. Leiston Film Theatre, a half-timbered building with street front shops, is the oldest purpose-built cinema in Suffolk. The cinema is owned and run by Leiston-cum-Sizewell Town Council and backed by Leiston Film Theatre Support Club, which has raised money for stage refurbishment and enabled the cinema to install a digital 3D projection system. The town has a traditional

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...

church, St Margaret's, with an ancient tower and an unusual 19th-century

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

. There are

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

and

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul c ...

churches on the edge of the town.

Sport and leisure

Leiston F.C. plays in the Bostik Premier Division and in November 2008 reached the first round of the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football compet ...

for the first time in its history. Leiston also has a leisure centre, a skate park and several parks. Leiston and Thorpeness Rugby Club was in existence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It closed in 1995, but was revived in March 2010 as Aldeburgh and Thorpeness Rugby Club, with many of the previous club's members.

Transport

A railway branch spur from the Great Eastern line, known as the Aldeburgh branch line, went from Saxmundham to Aldeburgh, with intermediate stations at Leiston and Thorpeness. On 12 September 1966

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four (British ra ...

withdrew all passenger services to Leiston and beyond. However, the line to Leiston remained active for the purpose of removing nuclear materials from Sizewell power station. Leiston has direct bus services to Ipswich, Saxmundham, Aldeburgh, Thorpeness and

Halesworth Halesworth is a market town, civil parish and electoral ward in north-eastern Suffolk, England. The population stood at 4,726 in the 2011 Census. It lies south-west of Lowestoft, on a tributary of the River Blyth, upstream from Southwold. T ...

Education

Other than Summerhill School, Leiston also has conventional primary and secondary schools. Leiston Primary School caters for pupils aged 5–11 and runs a nursery with 52 places.Leiston Primary School profile
Suffolk County Council. Retrieved 30 March 2011.

Alde Valley Academy Alde Valley Academy is a secondary school with academy status in Leiston in the English county of Suffolk. It has approximately 500 pupils aged 11 to 16, and a staff count of approximately 82. It draws pupils from the surrounding coastal area, ...

is a secondary school and sixth form with academy status, formerly known as Leiston Community High School, then as Alde Valley School from September 2012, after reorganisation involving the closure of Leiston Middle School and conversion from a 13–18 school to one taking pupils from the age of 11.T. Potter (2012
Leiston: Pupils take first lessons in new-look high school
''East Anglian Daily Times'', 6 September 2012. Retrieved 22 September 2012. The school received academy status in January 2015 and was renamed Alde Valley Academy. In 2001 the school had become a

Specialist Technology College In the United Kingdom, a Technology College is a specialist school that specialises in design and technology, mathematics and science. Beginning in 1994, they were the first specialist schools that were not CTC colleges. In 2008, there were 59 ...

, and in following years was named as one of the most improved schools in England. It was the lead school in the Schools Energy Network based at the Orbis Centre in

Lowestoft Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk (district), East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the List of extreme points of the United Kingdom, most easterly UK se ...

Waveney students become energy ambassadors
''Eastern Daily Press'', 19 September 2012. Retrieved 22 September 2012. and had strong links with the Sizewell nuclear power stations.Green.D (2007
School benefits from station link-up
''East Anglian Daily Times'', 20 January 2007. Retrieved 17 December 2011.

References

External links

The Leiston Long Shop MuseumSuffolk's oldest cinemaVisit LeistonLeiston Abbey
{{authority control Leiston, Towns in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Suffolk Coastal