Great Bealings
| Great Bealings | |
|---|---|
 Great Bealings village sign |
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 Great Bealings
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| Great Bealings shown within Suffolk | |
| Population | 302 (2011) |
| OS grid reference | TM231489 |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Woodbridge |
| Postcode district | IP13 |
| Dialling code | 01473 |
| Police | Suffolk |
| Fire | Suffolk |
| Ambulance | East of England |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
| UK Parliament | |
Great Bealings is a small village in Suffolk, England. It has about 302 people living in it in around 113 households. Its nearest towns are Ipswich (6 miles (9.7 km) away) and Woodbridge (2.6 miles (4.2 km)). Nearby villages include Little Bealings, Playford, Culpho, Hasketon and Grundisburgh. The village does not have an obvious centre, and the population is split between two areas — one around Lower Street to the East of the village, and the other at Boot Street/Grundisburgh Road to the West of the village. St Mary's, the village church, is about in the middle of these two centres of population.
The village shares a playing field with Little Bealings, which is located behind the joint Village Hall, and includes a grassed plateau, a fenced and hard surfaced multi-sports court, children's play equipment, and a boules piste. It is named after John Ganzoni, Lord Belstead, who lived in the village for many years, and whose Charitable Trust Fund supported the project.
The River Lark passes through the middle of the village, and is crossed by the main road with a hump back bridge.
Although there has been plenty of evidence of Roman occupation and they were known to navigate up to Clopton, the village name is believed to be of Saxon origin (meaning "the area where the Beda or Bele people lived.") The village was known as Belinges Magna until 1674 when the current spelling appeared, although Magna remained until much more recently.
In the Domesday Book there is mention of the Saxon Hall, owned by Halden, with Anund the priest in attendance. This was on the meadow by the church and was owned by several families such as the de Peche, Clench, and Majors, who knocked it down in 1775 to use the material to aid the construction of Bealings House.
The village has always had a strong agricultural base with several small farms. In White’s gazetteer of Suffolk in 1855, the listed tradesmen are: brickmaker, two boot makers, builder, wheelwright, blacksmith, gardener, shopkeeper, and miller as well as several farmers and gentlemen. The hump back bridge was built in 1841 and the village has had at least two pubs: the Boot, and the Live and Let Live, both in Lower Street. It is thought that two windmills existed in the village during the 1800s.
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Wikipedia