is a small town in the
County of
Suffolk ,
East Anglia ,
England , south of
Diss , and on the
River Dove .
Eye is twinned with the town of Pouzauges in the
Vendee Departement of
France
The town was home to the choreographer
Frederick Ashton until his death in 1988.
The town of Eye derives its name from the
Old English word for ‘island’ and it is believed that the first settlement on the site would have been almost entirely surrounded by water and marshland formed by the River Dove to the East and South East; its tributary to the North; and by the low land, part of which now forms the Town Moor, to the South and West. Even today, the area is still prone to flooding in areas close to the
River Dove , a tributary of the
River Waveney which marks the boundary between
Suffolk and
Norfolk .
There have been
Palaeolithic ,
Mesolithic ,
Neolithic and
Bronze Age finds in and around Eye but the earliest evidence of settlement in the town dates from the
Roman period and includes buildings and coins dated circa
365 .
In
Saxon Britain , prior to the
Norman Conquest , Eye was one of the numerous holdings of Edric of Laxfield, a wealthy and influential Saxon and the third largest land holder in
Suffolk . After the
Norman Conquest , the importance of the town was firmly established in the region when the
Honour of Eye was granted to William Malet, a Norman Lord, and continued to be held by royal or noble families until
1823 . Between
1066 and
1071 , Malet constructed a castle, to establish his military and administrative headquarters, and started a highly successful market thus initiating the
Urbanisation of the
Settlement . Later in 1086-7, Robert Malet, William’s son, founded the
Benedictine Priory of
St Peter , a cell of the Abbey of
Bernay in
Normandy .
Eye began to lose its strategic importance after
1173 when the castle was attacked by
Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl Of Norfolk , during the rebellion against
Henry II , and later during the
Second Barons' War of
1265 after which it never regained its former status. Its prison continued in use up until the early C17th despite a programme of demolition of most of the castle buildings during the C14th. A
Windmill , built in
1561 -2, stood on the
Motte until the circular mock keep was built in
1844 . The ruins of the keep are still in place today, and Castle Street and Church Street trace the elliptical shape of the former outer
Bailey .
There has been a church in Eye at least since
1066 but the present building, the Church of St Peter and St Paul, dates from the C14th and is considered one of the finest churches in the county. A C13th
Early English doorway, from a former building, was retained in the construction of the C14th church. In the C15th, and again the C16th, there were periods of further new work and renovation. The church was restored in
1868 by James Colling, a London architect. A particular feature of the church is the magnificent late-C15th
Rood Screen which has a loft and rood designed by Ninian Comper in
1925 . The screen is reputed to originate from Great Massingham
Priory in
Norfolk .
The earliest mention of industry in Eye records that in
1673 ‘the women’s employ in this town is making of bone
Lace ’ and later in
1830 , ‘the humbler class of industrious females employ themselves in lace making’. It would appear that Eye was at the centre of a localised lace making industry for many years; the last lacemaker in the town died in 1914. Lace was not the only industry, however, and the County Directories, list the many trades and occupations of the people of Eye over the 18th and 19th centuries. They included blacksmiths, wheelwrights, coopers, clockmakers, tailors, milliners and printers. There were several slaughterhouses, two breweries, and two retteries for the processing of flax. Iron and brass founders, agricultural implement makers, and church bell frame makers and hangers remained in operation into the C20th. Businesses recorded in Eye in
1937 included auctioneers, booksellers & printers, boot & shoe makers, corn chandlers, drapers, surgeons and watchmakers as well as banks, bakers, butchers and grocers.
Eye was once the smallest borough in the country, its claim based on the
1205 Charter of
King John . The Charter was renewed in
1408 then many more times by successive monarchs. However, in
1885 the Town Clerk of
Hythe proved that the original Charter belonged only to
Hythe in
Kent , the error having arisen from the similarity of the early English names. The error was confirmed by archivists in the 1950s but borough status was not discontinued until
1974 after government reorganization when Eye became a parish but retained a Town Council, a Mayor and the insignia. From
1571 to
1832 Eye boasted two
MP s, then, following the
Reform Act 1832 , one MP until
1983 after which the Eye Constituency became the Central Suffolk
Constituency .
In
1846 Eye Borough Council failed in its attempt to route the new
London -
Norwich Railway line through Eye. The line, completed in
1849 , went instead through
Diss ensuring its growth in prosperity and population while the importance of Eye waned. A branch line from
Mellis finally closed in
1964 . Today Eye retains its character as a small market town, with a population of around 2,000.
Through the years Eye has had a Deer Park, a
Leper Hospital, a Gaol, a Workhouse, a David Fisher Theatre, a Coaching Inn with Posting Establishment, a Working Men’s Hall and Reading Room, a
Guildhall , a Grammar School, twenty pubs (including beer houses) and an
Airfield which was occupied by the
480th And 490th USAAF Bomb Groups during
World War II .
Eye today has a hospital, a health centre, three schools, three churches, a library, a police station, a fire station, an industrial estate on the former airfield, a
WI Market , and a picnic site (The Pennings) beside the
River Dove . The Town Moors recreation site has play areas, football pitches and a large area of woodland walks. Eye also boasted one of the smallest professional theatres in the country which inhabited the Assembly Room of the former White Lion Coaching Inn.
- and 152 Grade Two buildings in the town. Eye Town Hall, an imaginative and unorthodox building dating from 1856 and listed Grade Two---, was designed by Edward Buckton Lamb, one of the ‘Rogue Architects’ of the mid- Victorian Period . Behind the Town Hall is The Queens Head, the sole survivor of the 20 pubs which once existed in Eye.
- ''The History of Eye'', Clive Paine ISBN 095225090X
- http://www.onesuffolk.co.uk/EyeTC/ Town Web Site
- http://www.midsuffolk.gov.uk/ Mid-Suffolk District Council
- http://usaaf.com/8thaf/bomber/490bg.HTM 490th Bomb Group
- http://www.455th.ukpc.net/tomfeise/tomeye.htm Map - Eye and its airfield
