Beccles

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Beccles
Coordinates 52 ° 27 ′  N , 1 ° 34 ′  E Coordinates: 52 ° 27 ′  N , 1 ° 34 ′  E
Beccles (England)
Beccles
Beccles
Residents 10,317 (as of 2017)
administration
Post town BECCLES
ZIP code section NR34
prefix 01502
Part of the country England
region East of England
Shire county Suffolk
District East Suffolk

Beccles is a small British town in Suffolk , East Anglia (East Anglia) , England . It has the status of a municipality ( Parish ) and carries the title of Town .

geography

Beccles is located in the East Suffolk district of northeast Suffolk on the right bank of the River Waveney . Here it is part of an extensive wetland, the Norfolk Broads . Since the Waveney forms the northern border of Suffolk, Beccles borders on the county of Norfolk .

Neighboring parishes of Beccles are, starting to the east and going clockwise, Worlingham , Weston , Ringsfield , Barsham , Gillingham and Aldeby . The latter two are in the Norfolk area. The nearest major cities are Lowestoft 15 km away and Great Yarmouth 20 km away, both of which are on the East English North Sea coast . After Norwich , the county seat of Norfolk, is 26, the administrative seat of Suffolk, Ipswich , 53 and the British capital London kms around 160th

The population was 10,123 at the time of the 2011 census and an estimated 10,317 in 2017. The area of ​​the district of Beccles is 8.24  km² , the GSS code of the city is E04009485.

history

Already 1000 years BC was in the range of Beccles a fortified transition through the wetland, whose remains were discovered in 2006 and archaeologically investigated. It was also used during Roman times and at least until the 4th century .

In early Anglo-Saxon times, the city was an important port because of its location on the Waveney. Since the time of King Edwy , St Edmund Abbey has been wealthy in the area. The Domesday Book , written in the late 11th century, names the abbey and Gyrth Godwinson as the landlords, and King Wilhelm in his successor . It reports on 120 households, which makes the settlement relatively large.

During the Count's uprising in 1075, 24 traders who had fled Norfolk for fear of punishment settled in Beccles. This gave the already existing trade in herring caught a significant boost.

Downtown with the bell tower
View from the bell tower of the New Market

Beccles had had a market since at least 1066. Rights and duties were shared, as of 1086, between the abbey and the crown in a ratio of three to one. In 1205 the abbot also gave Beccles the right to hold an annual mass , each lasting eight days, beginning on June 29, the feast day of Peter and Paul . Originally, the market was located in the north of the old town, closer to the river, near the St. Peter's chapel, which no longer exists today. In the 14th century it was moved south to higher ground, where the New Market was created . Between the two, the free-standing bell tower of St Michael, completed in 1540, was built, today a landmark of the city. At the Old Market under Maria I in the 1550s, three people who had refused to renounce their faith were put to the stake .

A leprosy hospital , which existed until 1674, and a bridge in 1268 were first mentioned in a document in 1267. In addition, the existence of a swan breeding facility at the monastery is documented.

The dissolution of the English monasteries also affected the Abbey of St Edmund. Their possessions and rights fell to the crown in 1539, which they subsequently gave into different hands. 1584 got Beccles of Elizabeth I the city rights awarded. On November 29, 1586 there was a fire that destroyed large parts of the city. The reasons for the extent were a strong wind and the fact that the river was frozen and therefore too little water was available to extinguish.

Associated with the granting of city rights were the approval to carry out local jurisdiction and the establishment of a prison. In 1684 a poor house was opened in the city . As part of the Poor Law , after a local restructuring in 1767, a workhouse was completed in Shipmeadow to the west , which was also responsible for the other parishes in the Wangford district. Instead, a prison was built at the old location . This, like the prison, was closed in 1863 as the court sessions had been relocated to Ipswich.

According to a resolution passed by the British Parliament under George III, the streets in Beccles were paved and provided with lighting at the end of the 18th century . A theater opened in 1819 was converted into a hall for trading grain in 1848. 1822 Beccles received again a facility for the treatment of sick ( English Dispensary ), which was expanded in 1873 to a hospital. From 1837 a gas works existed , which, among other things, supplied the existing 107 street lamps. At the end of the 19th century, Beccles experienced a significant increase in population, the number of inhabitants rose between 1871 and 1901 from 4844 to 6898. This value should remain constant until after the Second World War , in 1951 there were 6870 inhabitants.

Beccles today

View from the bell tower over the river

Beccles is now considered a sub-center of a largely rural area that only experiences a certain degree of compression towards the coast. The business center of the city is the New Market with an adjacent pedestrian zone . The small harbor, from which excursions by boat can be made on the Waveney, and the bell tower of St Michael, which offers views of the wider area, are of importance for tourism. A duck race has been among the regularly held events since 2004 .

Beccles owns a health center in the town center with a medical center and a small nursing home . The closest hospital is in Gorleston . The religious needs of the city's residents are covered by seven parishes . Of these, St Luke and St Michael are Anglican , St Benet Catholic . There are also Baptists , Quakers , the United Reformed Church and the evangelical New Life Christian Fellowship. There is also a branch of the Salvation Army in Beccles .

In addition to several primary schools, Beccles has two secondary schools, one public, the other private . The local history museum is housed in the listed Leman House . Beccles also owns a public library and an outdoor swimming pool , Beccles Lido .

Politics and administration

Beccles Town Hall

In the system of traditional counties in England , the city was part of the Wangford Hundred within Suffolk. As of 1835, Beccles was classified as a Municipal Borough . With the entry into force of the Local Government Act 1972 in April 1974, this went into the Waveney district , at the same time Beccles received as a so-called "Successor Parish" the status of a community with the title of a town . As a result of Waveney's merger with Suffolk Coastal , Beccles has been in the East Suffolk district since April 2019 .

Beccles has a sixteen-member town council, the Town Council , which is chaired by a new mayor, the Town Mayor , elected annually from among its own ranks . It is located in the Town Hall , a listed brick building from the 2nd half of the 18th century.

Beccles has had a town twinning with the northern French town of Petit-Couronne since 1987 and is also on friendly terms with Ahlem , a district of Hanover .

Buildings

A total of 148 buildings and facilities in the urban area are classified as culturally and historically significant. As listed building in the highest category I, these are the church of St Michael , its separate tower, the houses of St Peter's House , Leman House and Waveney House as well as the Roos Hall mansion . In addition, Northgate House is in Category II *, the remaining 141 are in Category II.

traffic

Place-name sign on the outskirts

In the north of Beccles by the southern meets Blythburgh contracting the A145 on the leading from Norwich to Lowestoft A146 . The signs on several of the access roads show the handover of the town charter from Queen Elizabeth I to John Baas, the Town Reeve of Beccles. They are replicas of an original from 1936 that can be seen in the local museum.

Beccles owns a station on the East Suffolk Line, which opened in 1854 and runs from Ipswich to Lowestoft . It has been operated by Abellio Greater Anglia since 2012 . Two more routes made the small town a railway junction . One, also opened in 1854, led to Great Yarmouth , the other, the Waveney Valley Railway , from 1863 to Tivetshall via Bungay . Both closed in the 1960s and were later dismantled. Several regional bus routes also serve public transport. Local transport needs are covered by a system similar to a citizen's bus , the catchment area of ​​which also includes the small town of Bungay a few kilometers upstream. The city's central bus station is located at the Old Market .

A military airfield built in 1942 for the US Air Force in the southeastern Ellough later functioned as a heliport for the construction and supply of the drilling platforms required for the extraction of the oil and gas deposits off the coast . Today it operates under the name Beccles Airfield and is used for private air traffic with small aircraft and for training flights.

Known residents

Born in Beccles

Lived in Beccles

  • Catherine Suckling and Edmund Nelson, the parents of the future Admiral Horatio Nelson , married in Beccles in 1749 and lived there for a few years before his birth.

literature

  • William White: Beccles . In: History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Suffolk, and the Towns Near Its Borders , Sheffield 1844, pp. 412–424 (English)
  • Alfred Suckling: Beccles . In: The History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk: Volume 1 , Ipswich 1846, pp. 1–35 (English)
  • Beccles section of: Wendy Goult: A Survey of Suffolk Parish History , 1990, ISBN 0860551393 . Available online from the County Council's Suffolk Heritage Explorer, PDF file, 305 kB
  • The Official Town Council Guide to Beccles , 2013–2015 edition. Available online on the City Council's website, PDF file, 9.6 MB (English)

Web links

Commons : Beccles  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Population data on the county administration's data server, accessed April 21, 2019. (English)
  2. ↑ Flood defense work uncovers Prehistoric and Roman timber Causeway. Report dated August 3, 2006 on the website of the University of Birmingham , accessed April 26, 2019. (English)
  3. ↑ Entry on Beccles at Opendomesday.org, accessed on April 19, 2019. (English)
  4. ↑ St Mary's chapel and hospital / St Mary's Flats. County Council's Suffolk Heritage Explorer, accessed April 26, 2019. (English)
  5. ↑ Beccles Bridge (Med). County Council's Suffolk Heritage Explorer, accessed April 26, 2019. (English)
  6. ↑ Wangford, Suffolk, on a web site on poor legislation in England, accessed April 26, 2019. (English)
  7. ↑ Amy Smith: Town gets set to go quackers as duck race returns for 15th year. Beccles and Bungay Journal, July 18, 2018, accessed April 26, 2019. (English)
  8. ↑ Information on the community on their website, accessed on April 26, 2019. (English)
  9. ↑ Museum website , accessed April 26, 2019. (English)
  10. ↑ Wangford Hundred at Vision of Britain, accessed April 23, 2019.
  11. ↑ Number 1 in: The English Non-metropolitan Districts (Definition) Order 1972, Schedule 1, Part 35 on the UK Government's Law Server, accessed on April 14, 2019 (English)
  12. ↑ The Local Government (Successor Parishes) Order 1973, Schedule Part I on the UK Government's Legislative Server, accessed April 23, 2019
  13. ↑ Website of the partnership association , accessed on April 26, 2019. (English)
  14. ↑ Beccles Parish database query on the Historic England website, conducted on April 23, 2019. (English)
  15. ↑ Information about the story on the operator's website, accessed on April 26, 2019. (English)
  16. ↑ Key data on the railway from Yarmouth to Beccles on the county administration's Norfolk Heritage Explorer, accessed on April 23, 2019. (English)
  17. ↑ Key facts about the Waveney Valley Railway on the county administration's Norfolk Heritage Explorer, accessed April 23, 2019. (English)
  18. ↑ Overview of bus routes in the Bungay and Beccles area on the county administration's website, accessed April 21, 2019. (English)
  19. ^ Website of the Citizens Bus Association , accessed on April 21, 2019. (English)
  20. ↑ Beccles Airfield on the Light Aircraft Association website , accessed April 26, 2019. (English)