History of the area

Beccles

Beccles is thought to date back well beyond 960, when its name was first mentioned in the granting of its manor to St Edmundsbury monastery by King Eadwig.

Some say the name means "pasture by the stream" but a former historian, the late Shelley Rix, thought it derived from the Anglo-Saxon "clisson", meaning an enclosure.

William the Conqueror's 1086 Domesday survey lists Beccles as having one church and 24 acres of glebe land, with the Abbot of Edmundsbury paying rent to the crown of 60,000 herrings.

Huge shoals of fish must have entered the Waveney estuary, at the time a wide expanse of water stretching back from Great Yarmouth, for Beccles to meet such demands.

Eventually this estuary silted up, dooming the herring fishery but leading to the creation of marshland which, wisely ditched and drained by successive abbots, boosted the Beccles estate to 1,400 acres by the reign of Richard II.

When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries a prominent merchant, William Rede, acting for a Beccles guild, gained a grant of the fen from the king with £120 raised by members. But claims of fraud and frequent brawls followed the transaction, as Rede's administration fell foul of local opinion.

To restore order Beccles surrendered its rights to Queen Elizabeth I, who in 1584 granted the town a charter under which it was run by a Port Reeve, steward and burgesses in a system kept until 1835.

That year's Municipal Corporation Act placed administration in the hands of a mayor, four aldermen and 12 councillors until, in 1974, Beccles lost its borough status and was incorporated into Waveney District Council. Today a town council, with an elected mayor but limited powers, oversees local issues.

Bungay

For over 700 years there has been a weekly market at Bungay, and today it still takes place in the shelter of the Butter Cross in the Market Place.

It makes this historic community on the River Waveney on the Suffolk-Norfolk border a true market town, though its origins go back even further - recent discoveries suggests there was a Saxon settlement there at least 400 years before the Norman Conquest.

After the Norman invasion of 1066, Bungay flourished, with Baron Hugh Bigod building Bungay Castle in 1174. He was one of the signatories to Magna Carta in 1215, but when he later rebelled, with other barons, against Henry II the monarch responded by ordering his men to destroy Bungay Castle.

They only partly succeeded, and the castle was rebuilt by Roger Bigod in 1294, though by the 15th century it had fallen into decay. Its ruins remain as an attraction today. Holy Trinity Church predates the castle, its round tower originally being built as a watch tower around 1040, with the nave added 100 years or so later.

The Priory of St Mary's was established in the 13th century and St Mary's Church soon after. The ruins of the Priory are still in the churchyard, and St Mary's Church, now redundant, dominates the town centre scene.

It was the scene of Bungay's most famous story. On August 4, 1577, during a violent thunderstorm, a black dog burst into the church, ran down the aisle, and so frightened worshippers that two died of fright on the spot. That part of the story has not been verified, but two people in the tower at the time did die.

The Black Dog of Bungay, later described in a report as "the devil in such likeness," and "a hellish monster" is known throughout the country and draws many visitors to the town.

In 1688 a disastrous fire hit Bungay, destroying virtually the whole of the town centre - around 400 homes, shops and factories were affected in all and many were left homeless. A petition in the name of the King and Queen was sent round the country to raise £30,000 to pay for it.

The two market crosses were destroyed, and the present Butter Cross was built the following year. Today it is Bungay's most picturesque landmark in the Market Place.

The town generally was rebuilt and some fine Georgian houses are evidence of how Bungay recovered.

Navigation along the River Waveney from Yarmouth to Bungay was established in the 1670s and Bungay thrived on the trade in coal, corn and wood. Matthias Kerrison, who owned the navigation rights for many years, became a millionaire as a result.

The coming of rail and later road travel saw trade decline in the first half of the 20th century and river trade ceased in 1933. Bungay had a railway station on the Waveney Valley Line for 90 years. It cut through part of Outney Common, 400 acres of beautiful heathland and grazing marshes.

Horse racing was held on the common for over 200 years, with the last meeting held there in 1957.

Today Bungay still has a Town Reeve as its figurehead - an ancient office which is now unique to the town, and which is thought to date back to Saxon times. The Town Reeve heads the Town Trust, which until the early part of the 20th century was the main administrative body. The urban district council was formed in 1910, but the Town Trust remains in being and still owns the Butter Cross, almshouses, the Castle Hills and town lands.

Trustees are known as feoffees, with a proportion of them being elected by the town council, Bungay's municipal body since local government re-organisation in 1974.