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Saxmundham

Coordinates: 52°12′54″N 1°29′13″E / 52.215°N 1.487°E / 52.215; 1.487
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Saxmundham
St.John the Baptist Church, Saxmundham
Saxmundham is located in Suffolk
Saxmundham
Saxmundham
Location within Suffolk
Population3,644 (2011 Census)[1]
OS grid referenceTM381632
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townSAXMUNDHAM
Postcode districtIP17
Dialling code01728
PoliceSuffolk
FireSuffolk
AmbulanceEast of England
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Suffolk
52°12′54″N 1°29′13″E / 52.215°N 1.487°E / 52.215; 1.487

Saxmundham (/ˈsæksməndəm/ SAKS-mən-dəm) is a small market town in Suffolk, England, set in the valley of the River Fromus about 18 miles (29 km) north-east of Ipswich and 5 miles (8 km) west of the coast at Sizewell. The town is bypassed by the A12. It is served by Saxmundham railway station on the East Suffolk Line between Ipswich and Lowestoft.

Governance

Saxmundham Town Council comes under the new East Suffolk District. It was previously in Suffolk Coastal District.[2] The district electoral ward also has the name Saxmundham. Its population at the 2011 census was 4,913.[3]

Origin

The place-name Saxmundham is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Sasmunde(s)ham. It appears as Saxmundham in the Feet of Fines of 1213. It denotes 'Seaxmund's village or estate'.[4]

Saxmundham has had a market charter since at least 1272 and holds a market to this day.

Notable residents

With a Wikipedia page, in birth order:

In fiction

Carving of an angel holding a Three Crowns emblem on the baptismal font (c.1400) in the parish church of St John the Baptist; the crowns are a symbol of East Anglia.

Brother Eadulf has become Saxmundham's most famous international fictional character, through the best-selling Sister Fidelma mysteries by Peter Tremayne (a pseudonym of the Celtic scholar and author Peter Berresford Ellis). Brother Eadulf, as companion and assistant to Sister Fidelma, often plays a crucial part in resolving the mystery. He is introduced as originally the hereditary gerefa (magistrate) of "Seaxmund's Ham in the land of the South Folk." He attends the famous Synod of Whitby in AD 664 and joins Sister Fidelma in solving a murder of one of the delegates (Absolution by Murder, 1994). He has since appeared in most of the novels and some of the short stories, although the Saxmundham area has been used as a setting in only one of the novels: The Haunted Abbot (2002). Tremayne chose Saxmundham as Eadulf's place of origin because of local connections, the nearness of the town to an ancient royal burial site of the East Angles, and the historic East Anglian connections with Irish Christian missionaries. He appears in all but two of the Sister Fidelma series of mystery novels, set in 7th century Ireland. The series has now reached 31 published titles, appearing in a score of languages. An International Sister Fidelma Society, devoted to the author and his work, has existed for 20 years and publishes a 20-page colour magazine three times a year.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Town population 2011". Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  2. ^ [saxmundham. org Town Council site. Retrieved 14 August 2019.]
  3. ^ "Ward population 2011". Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  4. ^ Eilert Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names, p. 406.
  5. ^ "JockBio: Ray Allen Biography". jockbio.com. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  6. ^ Society site. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Saxmundham.
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