Anne of Cleeves House

A brief history of HAVERHILL
(or Haverhill through the ages)

Original research and text by Michael Horne (c) 1999

Haverhill has a rich history and probably dates back to pre-Roman times, as indicated by Iron age artefacts discovered in the area.
During the Roman occupation there was almost certainly a battle near Sturmer in AD60 between the ninth Roman legion, and the British forces composed of the Iceni and the Trinovantes (originally under the command Queen Boudicca).
In the next three centuries, Roman villas and other settlements flourished at Castle Camps, Haverhill, Ridgewell and Wixoe, and a Roman cemetery was discovered at Withersfield in the eighteenth century. The River Stour was apparently navigable as far as Wixoe, and the main road through Cambridge, the Via Devana which originated in Chester, definitely went as far as Withersfield, and may have gone on through Haverhill to Colchester.
After the Roman's departure in 410, the history of Haverhill is obscure for the next 500 years, though many theories have been advanced, usually with little credibility. It was not until the time of the Doomsday Book (1086) that Haverhill had established itself as a market town and by the twelfth century there were manors at Haverhill, Horsham and Hanchett, and possibly a castle, although no direct evidence of this building until 1373, it may well have been merely a fortified manor house rather than a fully-fledged military establishment.
From 1008 onwards, for administrative purposes, most of the town was in the Risbridge Hundred of Suffolk, but one third of it was in what is now the Hamlet Road area, in what was called the Hinckford Hundred of Essex. This curious split continued for almost nine hundred years, until the end of the nineteenth century, and explains why Hamlet, even today, is very different in character from the High Street. Now, of course, the whole of Haverhill is in Suffolk.

During the later Middle Ages, Haverhill prospered, and was featured prominently on 14th and 16th century maps of England, much more so than some of its neighbours like Linton, Clare and Sudbury. Records of the market in the reigns of Henry V and henry VI (1431-1461) give evidence of a significant trading centre, with shops and stalls selling meat, fish, cloth, small goods, lace etc., and traders coming in from places like Hundon and Steeple Bumpstead. Haverhill was also a minor centre of the woollen industry and became a weaving town, a characteristic it maintained for several centuries.
In the sixteenth century the town continued to flourish. It obtained a royal connection on January 27th 1541, when the parsonage, lands and right to appoint clergy were granted to Henry VIII’s fourth, and recently divorced wife Anne of Cleves. A further royal connection came when Queen Elizabeth passed through Haverhill in 1568, on her way from Horseheath Hall to Kedington Hall. By 1620, Haverhill had become well known as a Puritan town. It produced many leading Puritan preachers such as the Ward family (John, his sons Samuel and Nathaniel and his grandson John). the Faircloughs and the Scanderets. There were several emigrations to America, where Haverhill Massachusetts, was founded in 1640. The Barnardistons of Kedington were leading officers in Cromwell's army, and the whole area supported Parliament against the King in the Civil Wars.
Then, on June 14th 1667, most of Haverhill was destroyed by the "great fire" which started at the "Swan" and quickly spread up the High Street. The "Essex" part of the town seems to have survived, but little of the centre remained, and the parish church was not able to be used again until 1670.

Fortunately the town’s fortunes did in fact revive during the Industrial Revolution, with the establishment of Gurteen's textiles in 1748, and other enterprises coming later: the Suffolk Brush Company, the Haverhill Rope Factory and in 1878, Atterton's Patent Lawn Mower Grinding Machine. There was much company housing, several non-conformist churches, a fine Town Hall (given to the community by the Gurteen family) a local newspaper and two railways stations, Haverhill South on the Colne Valley line, and Haverhill North on the Stour Valley Line. Around the town were no fewer than three windmills, including the unique ring-shaped Ruffles Mill on Chalkstone Hill, which was pulled down during the Second World War.
The population of the town in 1901 was around 4,000, and Haverhill remained much the same as it had been for the first half of the twentieth century: a small but active agricultural and industrial township. After the Second World War, however, there was a further decline, and the town council invited the GLC to develop it as an "Overspill" community. In the 1950's the first estate, "Parkway", was built, and others followed in the next three decades: "Clements", for example, in the 60's and "Chalkstone" by 1972. Industrial estates were also started in the 1960’s, as part of a regeneration plan Unfortunately, the railways were removed just as this plan was beginning to take shape. A bypass, however, was successfully completed in 1996 after twenty years of discussion.
Today Haverhill is connected with Bury St. Edmunds administratively and with Cambridge commercially. It is still at a cross-roads, since further development is again being proposed. It promises to be a controversial a town in the years to come as it has been for centuries past.