The name lives on ...
Houses get knocked down, fields are built on, roads and footpaths are renamed or lost all together but the name lives on, even after the location or the reason for the name is forgotten. Most of the following are unofficial names used by SLHG members or if you want to know why a road has the name it does then go to…
For older locations that are no longer remembered by local people search in land areas .
The following are examples of names of tracks or footpaths that will not be found on official maps.
Grays Close – was a track that ran along the Green from Thorney Green Road to Walnut Cottages, Thatched Cottage and Caxton Cottage giving access to M&Ms (Spencers/Disneys).
From the 1839/40 Tithe apportionment – Grays Close or Pightle was owned and occupied by Issac Taylor, it was arable land of 2a 3r 27p.
Reynold’s Ditch, linking The Green to The Heights housing, possibly named in the mid 20th century when a family called Reynolds lived on the other side of the ditch, and possibly before the present pedestrian bridge and fence was installed. Another resident remembered this as Gannon’s Gap.
Dents Corner – Dents newsagents is long gone but the name is still used, although future generations may know it better for the Chinese Take Away.
What is now the A1120 has had various names within living memories and other names before that i.e. The Kings Highway, though whether it was ever the Queen’s Highway I don’t know (well I didn’t when I wrote this but… ) From a small note in Ena Carter’s handwriting referring to a 1856 indenture relating to land called Pheasans & now called “Littel Feasdons” she noted it was ;bounded by the Queen’s Highway leading to Old Newton & Creeting respectively’.
If researching using the census it can get confusing as sometimes it is Main Road all the way to Bells Lane and Saxham Street, another year it could be Stonham Road or Mendelsham Road. Church Road /Hill, Crown Hill may lead to Pitman Road and so to Saxham street, or Saxham Street may run all the way down to the lane leading to Park Farm.
Locals may have referred to it as the Front Road as opposed to the Back Road leading on to Gipping Back Lane, or is that Gipping Road?
Downtown Road was the road to go down to Stowmarket (Stowupland as its name suggests is on higher ground) past Elm Farm. Now the B1115 but its course has been altered.
Duck’s Bridge is said to be somewhere near Oak Road.
Prestons Hill or in the 16th century Fares Hill. When the road from Stowmarket went past Hill House, and was renamed in the 19th century after the farm owner George Preston.
Maltings Lane runs along side the Crown Meadow housing development giving access to the URC Chapel car park and Park Farm. However at present we have no history about the location, date or ownership of any maltings in stowupland.
New Road has now been renamed Thorney Green Road
The Road to Nowhere, though watch this space as it may be given a proper name as Trinity Meadows becomes more established
Ranny Lane is officially now Rendall Lane. It runs from the A1120 to Old Newton but the section between Gipping Road and Stowupland Hall used to be an unmade track. It is unknown whether Ranny was simply an abbreviation of Rendall or referred to tiny mice that lived there, known in Suffolk as Rannys.
Neil Langridge has been researching and finds Rendall (or variants) is of Anglo-Saxon or Scottish origin and he suggests that our lane may run close to a possible Anglo-Saxon burial ground. An estate map from 1806 shows fields named Upper and Lower Randals to the right (North) of the lane as it passes Water Run Farm. Two decades later the tithe apportionment map renamed them Lower and Middle Rundle, next to Upper Rundle. In the 17th century a Edmund Randall did live in Stowupland, but at present we don’t know where.
Hatchcroft Brook. a footpath that runs from Gipping Back Lane to Saxham Street passes over a small brook, it is crossed by a wooden bridge. The brook trickles down a small valley between Palgrave Farm and Rookery Farm
Dodds Way named after a Mr Dodd who lived on the Green and regularly walked across it to milk Mr Carter’s cows. Alternatively Dodd’s Way may have been a footpath linking Mill Street to Creeting passing along the side of Bramford Farm. NL has found it mentioned in old documents as ‘the lane to Creeting’ .
Noone’s Lane maybe associated with Spoonmans farm, but we are unsure
St Anns Cross. Mystery surrounds this location, is it Bells Cross on Bells lane, or is it associated with St Ann’s Chapel in Stonham?
Bacons Hill. Why, where or what is unknown!
By 1928 the main roads around Stowupland had been covered with tarmac so ‘set in stone’. There were still modifications such alterations to the direction of Stowmarket Road and the termination of Mill Street with the coming of the A14. In the 21st century more user friendly hard surfaces for passage across the Green have been laid.
