Minsmere

Minsmere is a place in the English county of Suffolk. It is located on the North Sea coast around 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north of Leiston and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south-east of Westleton within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB. It is the site of the Minsmere RSPB reserve and the original site of Leiston Abbey.

At the Domesday Survey in 1086 Minsmere was known as Menesmara or Milsemere. It is recorded as having six households headed by freemen with one plough team. The manor, which was in the Hundred of Blythling, was held by Roger Bigot.

Ranulf de Glanvill, King Henry II's Lord Chief Justice, founded an abbey on the marshes at Minsmere in 1182, but, probably due to an increased risk of flooding, this was abandoned in favour of Leiston Abbey in 1363.

Peat cutting is recorded to have taken place at Minsmere dating back to at least the 12th century and a 1237 description of the coastline describes Minsmere as a port. Minsmere is recorded in the 14th century as being a small village with around 10 homesteads, but these had all been lost to the sea by the 16th century. A survey of 1587 records that the early Tudor period 'entrenchments' at Minsmere were in ruins and recommended that they be rebuilt. During the 18th century Minsmere, Eastbridge and the Sizewell gap were renowned as a hotbed for smugglers. A coastguard station operated at Minsmere in the 1840s in an attempt to control smuggling along this stretch of the coast.

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