Red Lodge, Suffolk
| Red Lodge | |
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 View of Red Lodge village in 2006 |
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 Red Lodge
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| Red Lodge shown within Suffolk | |
| Population | 3,834 |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
Red Lodge is a village and civil parish situated in rural Suffolk between Mildenhall and Newmarket, and very close to the A11 and A14 roads.
Red Lodge is a growing community administered by Forest Heath District Council. It has new homes from a variety of building companies centred on the Kings Warren development at the northern end of the village. Currently, community facilities include an Ecumenical church, village hall and venue (known as the Millennium Centre), a sports pavilion with tennis courts, a five-a-side football pitch and allotments. A new school opened in September 2012 and the new village centre which opened in 2014 has a convenience store, fish and chip shop, kebab shop, pharmacy and estate agents. The Red Lodge Steakhouse Restaurant and Pub recently opened its doors too after an extensive refurbishment of the original pub building which is the oldest recorded building in the village.
The village dates back to 1926 when the first houses were built, although the pub, Red Lodge Inn, is far older, having been recorded on a map of the site in 1885. It is thought to be a former hunting lodge dating back to the 17th century. The area where most of the new housing is situated was formerly a rabbit warren attached to Freckenham Manor lands, with a history dating back to the 13th century. Red Lodge became a civil parish in 1987, having previously been part of Freckenham parish.
Red Lodge Heath is an area of acid grassland and lowland and is an SSSI, with a number of nationally rare plants and animals. It includes a population of the five-banded tailed digger wasp, Cerceris quinquefasciata, which nests in bare sand along a path to the north of the site, and on sparsely vegetated slopes to the west. Discovery of the wasp population in 2005 by English Nature meant that Forest Heath District Council had to adapt proposed housing and school development plans in this area of the village.
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Wikipedia