Letheringham is a sparsely populated

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the East Suffolk district (formerly

Deben Rural District Deben Rural District was a rural district in the county of East Suffolk, England. It was created in 1934 by the merger of parts of the disbanded Bosmere and Claydon Rural District, the disbanded Plomesgate Rural District and the disbanded Woo ...

and then

Suffolk Coastal Suffolk Coastal was a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Suffolk, England. Its council was based in Melton, Suffolk, Melton, having moved from neighbouring Woodbridge, Suffolk, Woodbridge in 2017. Other towns include Fel ...

) in Suffolk, England, on the Deben River. St Mary is a tiny church, the remains of the tower and nave of a Priory church, and sits in a farmyard. For over 1000 years Letheringham has been a parish of ancient

Loes Hundred Loes was a hundred (subdivision), hundred of Suffolk, with an area of . Loes Hundred was long and thin in shape, around long and between 2 and wide. It followed the course of the River Deben from Cretingham to Ufford where it crossed Wilford (h ...

. From the 2011 Census population details were no longer maintained for this parish and were included in the civil parish of Hoo.

History

Domesday Book

Letheringham was recorded here in 1086 as a settlement in the hundred of Loose having 30 households (of which 16 were free). The majority of lands were held under the local Lord, William of Bouville.

Letheringham Priory Letheringham PrioryHistoric England ListingLetheringham Priory See their website focopyright terms and conditions was a small outlying cell of the Augustinian Priory of St Peter and St Paul in Ipswich (England) that was founded at the end of the ...

Source: This priory, a small cell of the Ipswich Augustinian Priory, was founded end of the 12th century and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. It remained under the patronage of the de Bovile family until the mid-14th century when it passed to the Wingfields. Following the Dissolution, the Priory was granted in 1539 to Sir

Anthony Wingfield Sir Anthony Wingfield (died 15 August 1552) Order of the Garter, KG, Parliament of England, MP, of Letheringham, Suffolk, was an English soldier, politician, courtier and member of parliament. He was the Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk from 1551 ...

. After fire damage in the early 1600s, a descendant of his, Sir

Robert Naunton Sir Robert Naunton (1563 – 27 March 1635) was an England, English writer and politician who sat in the House of Commons of England, House of Commons at various times between 1606 and 1626. Family Robert Naunton was the son of Henry Naunton of ...

, built a large mansion, Letheringham Abbey, on the site to the south of the monastic church. Through vandalism and neglect the church was in serious disrepair by the late 1700s. It remains a site of both historical and archaeological interest, particularly the remaining brick gatehouse and the restored church.

Personalities

(1563–1635), English politician and writer : location of death * Sir

Robert Wingfield Sir Robert Wingfield (died 1454), of Letheringham in Suffolk, was an English landowner, administrator and politician.G. E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors. The C ...

of Letheringham (1403–1454), a son of a senior Sir Robert Wingfield (c. 1370 – 3 May 1409) and Elizabeth Russell * Captain

Edward Maria Wingfield Edward Maria Wingfield (1550–1631) was a soldier, Member of Parliament (1593), and English colonist in America. He was the son of Thomas Maria Wingfield, and the grandson of Richard Wingfield. Captain John Smith wrote that from 1602 to 1603 ...

(1550–1631), a soldier, Member of Parliament, (1593) and English colonist in America * ''

Akenfield ''Akenfield'' is a film made by Peter Hall (theatre director), Peter Hall in 1974, based loosely upon the book ''Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village'' by Ronald Blythe (1969). The production company Angle Films that produced the film ...

'', a 1974 film was partly shot on location in Letheringham.

References

External links

Photographs of Letheringham on flickr.com
Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk {{Suffolk-geo-stub