This afternoon I was once again interviewed by James Hazell for BBC Radio Suffolk’s ‘Spooky Suffolk’ segment, this week focussing on Suffolk’s abandoned settlements. Although Dunwich is the most famous of these, a large port town abandoned to the sea in the Middle Ages, other settlements have been absorbed by the expansion of towns such as Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and Lowestoft (and their names forgotten), while other settlements never recovered their population after the Black Death and were abandoned – such as Alston St John, Chilton and Wordwell. Still more villages ceased to exist or were moved from their original location as a result of the enclosure and landscaping of parkland in the 18th century, such as Fornham St Genevieve, Ickworth and Culford. You can listen to me talking about Suffolk’s lost settlements here at time signature 2:15:30.
Francis Young 