Chelmondiston is a small village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

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 L ...

, England located on the Shotley Peninsula, five miles south-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 r ...

. The hamlet of

Pin Mill A pin mill is a mill that comminutes materials by the action of pins that repeatedly move past each other. Much like a kitchen blender, it breaks up substances through repeated impact. The mill is a type of vertical shaft impactor mill and cons ...

lies within the parish on the south bank of the

River Orwell The River Orwell flows through the county of Suffolk in England from Ipswich to Felixstowe. Above Ipswich, the river is known as the River Gipping, but its name changes to the Orwell at Stoke Bridge, where the river becomes tidal. It broadens i ...

. The village comprises approximately 500 dwellings and has a population of just over 1,000. It is one of the largest villages situated on the Shotley Peninsula.

History

The etymology of the word Chelmondiston is perhaps ‘Ceolmund’s dwelling’. The parish contains a number of

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

barrow sites. Chelmondiston and Pin Mill do not appear in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086. It was formerly known as Chelmington and was located in the old

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

of Babergh.

Churches

The original parish church of St. Andrew was described in 1865 as an "old, small, dilapidated edifice, with a square tower", and it was subsequently rebuilt by architect Edward Charles Hakewill. On 10 December 1944, during

World War II 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, a flying bomb hit Hakewill's church and it was almost completely destroyed. In 1951, Basil Hatcher was commissioned to provide a replacement. The modern St. Andrew's church includes a set of stained glass windows made by

Francis Skeat Francis Walter Skeat (3 December 1909 – 31 August 2000) was an English glass painter who created over 400 stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals, both in England and overseas. Skeat was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow ...

in the 1960s. There is also a Methodist church on the Main Road and a Baptist church on Pin Mill Road.

Notable residents

* John Henley (1692–1756) clergyman, writer and poet, also known as 'Orator Henley' and noted for his showmanship and eccentricity. *

George Ratcliffe Woodward George Ratcliffe Woodward (27 December 1848 – 3 March 1934) was an English Anglican priest who wrote mostly religious verse, both original and translated from ancient authors. The best-known of these were written to fit traditional melodies ...

(1848–1934) Anglican priest, poet and musician. *

Princess Muna al-Hussein Princess Muna Al-Hussein ( ar, منى الحسين, born Toni Avril Gardiner; 25 April 1941) is the mother of Abdullah II of Jordan. She was the second wife of King Hussein; the couple divorced on 21 December 1972. She is British by birth, and ...

(born Antoinette Gardiner in 1941) wife of

Hussein of Jordan Hussein bin Talal ( ar, الحسين بن طلال, ''Al-Ḥusayn ibn Ṭalāl''; 14 November 1935 – 7 February 1999) was King of Jordan from 11 August 1952 until his death in 1999. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of ...

References

External links

* * * * * * *
Village website
- Chelmondiston Web Site (broken link)

{{authority control Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Babergh District