Rattlesden is a village and

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

Mid Suffolk Mid Suffolk is a local government district in Suffolk, England. The district is primarily a rural area, containing just three towns, being Stowmarket, Needham Market and Eye. Its council was based in Needham Market until 2017 when it moved to sha ...

district of

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

in eastern England. It is approximately north-west from the

county town In Great Britain and Ireland, a county town is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county, and the place where public representatives are elected to parliament. Following the establishment of county councils in ...

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...

, with the nearest town

Stowmarket Stowmarket ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England,OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton A2 edition. Publishing Date:2008. o ...

to the east. The parish includes the

hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...

of Hightown Green and Poystreet Green. In 2005 the population of Rattlesden was 900, and for the 2011 Census the returns included the neighbouring parish of Shelland. The

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

of St Nicholas dates to the 13th century, with later additions and alterations.

History

The village and surrounding area, like much of

East Anglia East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...

, was a hotbed of

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...

sentiment during much of the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1634, a local

wheelwright A wheelwright is a Artisan, craftsman who builds or repairs wooden wheels. The word is the combination of "wheel" and the word "wright" (which comes from the Old English word "''wryhta''", meaning a worker - as also in shipbuilding, shipwright ...

, Richard Kimball led a relatively large company from Rattlesden to the

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around Massachusetts Bay, one of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of M ...

as part of the wave of emigration that occurred during the Great Migration.Thompson, Roger, ''Mobility & Migration, East Anglian Founders of New England, 1629-1640'', Amherst:

University of Massachusetts Press The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The press was founded in 1963, publishing scholarly books and non-fiction. The press imprint is overseen by an interdisciplinar ...

, 1994, 212-213.

Thomas Cobbold (1680–1752) Thomas Cobbold (April, 1680, Rattlesden – 1752) was an English brewer who established a family brewery in Ipswich. The Cobbold family went on to become one of the most influential families in Ipswich. He was the son of John Cobbold (1654 – ...

, the brewer who established the

Cliff Brewery The Cliff Brewery is a Grade II listed former brewery in Ipswich, England. The building dates to 1896 and was designed by William Bradford. Location The building is located on Cliff Lane, near the Ipswich wet dock. History The business that ...

and first member of the

Cobbold family The Cobbold family became influential in Ipswich and Suffolk in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The family is best known for brewing, moving its operations from Harwich to Ipswich in 1746, and as the driving force behind Ipswich Town Footb ...

brewing dynasty, was born at Rattlesden. John Pretyman (1753/1754–1817), the

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

who served as

Archdeacon of Lincoln The Archdeacon of Lincoln is a senior ecclesiastical officer in the Diocese of Lincoln – they have responsibilities within their archdeaconry (the ancient Archdeaconry of Lincoln) including oversight of church buildings and some supervision, dis ...

from 1793 to 1817, was a

curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are as ...

of the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

. During the Second World War, Rattlesden was the site of the U.S. Army Air Force heavy bomber base,

RAF Rattlesden The Royal Air Force Rattlesden or more simply RAF Rattlesden is a former Royal Air Force station located south east of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England. History USAAF use The Rattlesden airfield was built in 1942 as a Class A bomber airfi ...

. The site is now used by the Rattlesden Gliding Club. In 1975 the historic core of the village became a

conservation area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewoo ...

under the auspices of the district council and the guidelines of

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

References

* Roberts, Gary Boyd, Ed., ''English Origins of New England Families'', Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1984, 691–92.

External links

Parish Council website
{{authority control Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Mid Suffolk District Thedwastre Hundred