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Lavenham, and Lavenham Guildhall, Suffolk

House in Lavenham

When people think of the history of industrialisation they think of bleak towns in northern England during the nineteenth century. In reality the beautiful town of Lavenham in Suffolk is as much a part of industrial history as, say, Manchester.

Suffolk was for many hundred of years the home of a huge textile industry. Sheep farming was traditional here, and cloth production grew up beside it. Then in the 1370s Edward the Third put a tax on the export of raw wool, which encouraged the production of finished cloth, which wasn't taxed. Cloth merchants now began hiring hundreds of workers, and there was a rudimentary division of labour with different people concentrating on various stages of manufacture. Power came from running water. Lavenham was an industrial town, without any doubt, with rich capitalists, and much poorer workers, operating early production lines. So important was this trade to England that from the reign of Edward the Third, the Lord Chancellor sat on a symbolic wool sack, a tradition which continues in the House of Lords today. The wool industry can be explored at the Guildhall in Lavenham. This building, once home to the weaver's guild that controlled the industry, is now owned by the National Trust. It houses a display telling the story of the cloth industry in Lavenham.

 

Lavenham Church

By the 1460s Lavenham was producing more cloth than almost any other town in the country. The huge wealth generated had to be shown off. A lavish cloth merchants house, Paycockes, can be seen in Coggeshall, not far from Lavenham, in Essex. Most impressive, however, were the churches, built out of wool profits. There are a number of these wool cathedrals in Suffolk, at Long Melford for example, and in Lavenham, where the church was completed in 1525. Ironically this was the same year when events began to conspire to bring down the once great industry. 1525 saw Henry the Eighth impose heavy taxation to finance pointless wars in France. The wars themselves disrupted trade and hastened decline. In a further irony, the lavish Lavenham Guildhall, where the story of the cloth industry is now told, was built in 1530. It was one of the last buildings to be erected before the market crashed. By the 1560s Lavenham had fallen into a desperate state of decline, which explains its preservation. While other more prosperous places grew and developed, Lavenham was trapped in its past. The town, which looks so much like the product of a more innocent age, is actually an industrial town preserved by economic disaster. Now of course it makes a living trading on what was once the product of its troubles.

 

Lavenham Guildhall of Corpus Christi

Visiting details for Lavenham Guildhall

Opening Times: 1st April to 2nd November 11am - 5pm daily. 8th November to 30th November, 11am - 4pm, weekends only. 8th March to 31st of March 11am - 4pm, Wednesday to Sunday. Closed Good Friday.

Directions: Lavenham is on the A1141 in Suffolk, about five miles north east of Sudbury. The Guildhall is in the Market Place. Click here for an interactive map centred on Lavenham.

Access: There is a level entrance. Ground floor is uneven, and the second floor can only be reached by stairs. The shop and tearoom both have level access.

Contact:

telephone: 01787 247646

web site: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-lavenham/