Walsham le Willows is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district, in Suffolk, England, located around 3 miles (4 km) south-east of Stanton. Queen Elizabeth I granted Walsham le Willows to Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, in 1559. In 2011 the parish had a population of 1213.

Walsham le Willows
Village sign of Walsham le Willows
Walsham le Willows is located in Suffolk
Walsham le Willows
Walsham le Willows
Location within Suffolk
Population1,213 (2011)[1]
OS grid referenceTM004713
Civil parish
  • Walsham-le-Willows
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townBURY ST EDMUNDS
Postcode districtIP31
Dialling code01359
List of places
UK
England
Suffolk
52°18′11″N 0°56′17″E / 52.303°N 0.938°E / 52.303; 0.938

Because the village is documented unusually fully in surviving records of the time, the Cambridge historian John Hatcher chose to use it as the setting for his semi-fictionalised account of the effects of the mid-14th century plague epidemic in England, The Black Death: A Personal History (2008).[2]

Sacrifice Pole

Dating from ancient time, a wooden beam has been stored in buildings around the village. Each year, at the start of February, around the time of Imbolc the wood is moved to a new building. The name Sacrifice Pole may relate to the era of plague but, equally, may not.


Sport and leisure

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Walsham le Willows has a Non-League football club Walsham-le-Willows F.C. currently in the Eastern Counties League who play at Sumner Road.

Sources

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  • Kenneth Melton Dodd (editor), The Field-Book of Walsham-le-Willows 1577 (Ipswich: Suffolk Records Society, 1974).

References

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  1. ^ "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statristics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
  2. ^ Hatcher, John (2008). The Black Death: A Personal History. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-306-81571-3.
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  Media related to Walsham le Willows at Wikimedia Commons