Home Page The History of Haverhill

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. By the tenth century, however, Sturmer was the leading power in the area, sending a famous battalion, under their Saxon chief Leofsunu, to fight at the battle of Maldon (August 11th, 991). The focus then shifted to Haverhill, which was an established market town by the time of the Doomsday Book (1086), and may of had a market even earlier, around 1050. 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, and 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, in what is now the Hamlet Road area, was in 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.

The mediaeval town developed first around Burton End, where there was an eleventh century parish church, dedicated to St. Mary’s, called Bovetownchurch. (In the nineteenth century this name was misrepresented to become St. Botolph's: a serious mistake, since it has caused confusion ever since). A second church was established in the thirteenth century on the main highway, and the town centre, together with the market, shifted to its present position. Both churches were for many years under the patronage of Castle Acre in Norfolk. In 1551, however, the people requested that the old church be abandoned, and it was promptly pulled down. Nothing of the Burton End now remains, though an excavation carried out in 1997 by the Hertford Archaeological Trust, uncovered many ancient skeletons and funeral relics.

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. Unfortunately, few records survive of the post-fire period up to about 1730, though the population figures suggest that Haverhill suffered a severe decline, going down to less than one thousand inhabitants.

However, we are lucky to possess the diaries, journals and poems of the two weaver brothers, Barnaby and John Webb, whose writings began in the 1790s. They present a lively and colourful picture of a rather beautiful small town, full of interesting characters, customs and the occasional sensational event. 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.

By the end of the nineteenth century Haverhill had almost come to resemble a red-brick midlands mill town, dominated by the Gurteen's Factory. 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. Domestic architecture included a block of twelve houses known as Weaver's row, each of which had three stories, the middle one containing the loom. 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, and a totally new image of the town was promulgated under Sir Frederick Giffard's special plan of 1967. 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.