Leiston

Leiston is a unique town among the wide variety of villages and settlements in Suffolk. In early history, Leiston was known only for its proximity to the river Mismer and important ports at Syzewell and Minsmere Havens (and therefore lucrative wrecking and smuggling activity) and the presence of nearby Leiston Abbey which would have dominated the local economy until the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII. By fluke of history, the business of one bladesmith, Richard Garrett (born 12.10.1757), grew steadily from 1778 to metamorphose into an important Victorian engineering factory. Famous for its threshing machines, traction engines and many other products, Garretts engineering works transformed Leiston from a hamlet of a few hundred inhabitants into an industrial town.

Many other businesses were drawn into Leiston to service the growing population including that of corn miller. In 1865, we find the first mention of a smock mill run by James Bedwell operating on a ridge carrying the railway line from the station over Valley Road and towards Thorpe Halt and Aldeburgh. Henry James Lambert is first mentioned as operating the windmill in 1892, alongside a steam driven mill. The slope from Valley Road up to the site is still known as Lambert's Lane and the cottage on the corner carries the familar cartouche of cream-white paint with the decorative serif lettering (note the inward-sloping 'H'): 'MILL HOUSE'.

But surely there must have been something, perhaps an arrow, above the name? The mill was dismantled in 1917 when the use of wind power to grind corn became uneconomical, however some of the original buildings still exist at the top of Lamberts Lane.  Demolition was carried out by John 'Tiny' Brown who also demolished the mill in Snape. the base of which was later used as a house by the Suffolk composer Benjamin Britten. The mill stones from Snape were used in the refurbishment of Saxtead mill, just outside Framlingham.

This is a gravestone close to the main door of Leiston church in Waterloo Avenue. An earlier photograph of the same stone from the 1970s formed the basis of a lost oil painting by Borin Van Loon (still looking!). We think it must have been the name of the grave's occupant: 'LOT BETTS... also of ANN, Relict of Lot Betts' (hopefully not known in her lifetime as "Lot's wife". This recent view is replete with molehill, dead leaves and a wealth of algae and moss to obscure the ancient carved script. Leiston church is one of the most distinctive, not to say eccentric, ecclesiastical buildings in a county groaning with hundreds of historic churches and monastic ruins.