Snape's colourful history can be traced back for 2000 years
By John Waddell, former Snape Village Recorder
The History of Snape, which was touched by both the Roman and Norman
conquests, can be traced back for over 2,000 years. It was, in its time,
a more significant place than Aldeburgh which now substantially outranks
it in size. Although internationally known from the fame of Benjamin
Britten brought it, it can also be credited with pioneering two agricultural
revolutions and hosting a horse race meeting for almost 150 years.
The Romans lived nearby. They evaporated the waters of the River Alde
to produce salt and traces of their salt pans were found at Snape in the
Snape achieved a greater significance as a burial place which may well
have been used by the rulers of East Anglia, the Wuffings, whose palace
was nearby at Rendlesham. Excavations have uncovered many graves
and two boat burials, dated from about the middle of the first millennium,
on a site now bisected by the road to Aldeburgh.
Excavating the Anglo-Saxon cemetery and the fine gold signet ring
(below) which was found, among other things, in the boat burial uncovered
Archaeological clues also indicate that the original village was centred
on the higher ground in the area now dominated by the church. Whether
the movement of the population towards the river was the result of plague,
politics or providence has yet to be determined.
a church existed at the time of the Norman conquest. In the Domesday Book
of 1085 it was recorded as standing in 8 acres and valued at 16 pence
- which, by the standards of the day, was not as dismissive as it sounds.
The present building dates from the 13th century, with the porch and tower
added in the 15th century. It was originally thatched.
Even at the time of the Domesday Book Snape must have had a population
of over 100 people; the book records the existence of 49 men who together
with their families would have made a reasonably sized village for the
time. The population was further increased when the Snape Priory was set up down the river by a local landowner, William
Martell, before he went off to the Third Crusade. It lasted, despite a
somewhat chequered history, from 1155 until 1525 when Cardinal Wolsey
closed it and stripped its assets to use, at least in part, to set up
All that remains of it is a magnificent barn, now part of Abbey Farm
on the same site, built by monks and carbon-dated to 1295.
Probability suggests it was the monks - who constructed their own water
mill - who also built the first bridge across the Alde. It was certainly
wooden and by 1492 sufficiently in need of repair for the then Bishop
of Norwich to give permission for alms for that purpose to be sought from
The main traffic from London going north, which is now carried by the
A12, went for centuries by way of Snape Bridge. The present 1960 construction
succeeded a red brick. hump-back bridge built in 1802 - still
remembered with affection but more suited to the horse than the internal
The bridge, being the first point at which the River Alde could be crossed
without getting wet, inevitably became associated with smugglers who needed
to move their goods across it. The
Crown public house has a dormer window facing south which was
supposedly used to signal the all clear once the militias were in the
bar below seeking refreshment.
The Crown also had a role in the great attraction which brought crowds from London
to Snape in the 18th and 19th centuries long before the Maltings concert
hall produced a similar influx. The Snape Race Course on the banks of
the Alde hosted a race meeting every year for the best part of 150 years.
Entries were made at the Crown or the White Lion in Aldeburgh. The map
shows the situation of the racecourse at the end of a long avenue of trees
stretching from Friston Hall when it was occupied by the Earl of Strafford.
Racegoers, at least after 1785, were able to arrive via the new road
(the present A1094) which was built by the Aldeburgh Turnpike Company
and made Snape more easily reached. The road's importance was not challenged
by the railway. Although a branch rail line was put through to Snape in
1888 it was only ever used for goods traffic to the Snape
The River Alde played a more significant part of Snape's development
than the railway. As a small inland port, with the growth of the Snape
Maltings it was, by the end of the 19th century, also a remarkably
It was by Thames barge from the port that, a hundred years ago, a significant
cargo was sent to Holland. Sugar beet had not been successfully grown
in this country before but a crop, planted on the field between the Crown
and the river and shipped to the Netherlands
for processing, proved that it could be made to pay. It was soon to become
a staple of East Anglian farmers.
If Snape played its part in that farming revolution it had already played
its part in another. The village had three windmills in the 19th century.
At one, Hudson's mill - which after it closed in 1933 was occupied by Benjamin Britten - the first experiments were conducted which led
to what has been called The Suffolk Gold Rush. A Saxmundham bone merchant,
Edward Packard, conducted the initial experiments there which led to the
treatment of coprolite so that it could be spread as a fertilizer. Coprolite, largely consisting of Tri-Calcium Phosphate,
was to be found in a strata of local crag. For the second half of the
19th century fortunes made as coprolite sold for £2.10s a
ton and an acre of land in the right place could produce 300 tons. (10s (= 10shillings)
is what we now call 50 pence, half of a £. Ed) Although better
fertilizers were eventually discovered Edward Packard, made prosperous
by his process, set up a firm with two partners which eventually became Fisons.
Snape, which as remarked earlier, probably had over 100 inhabitants in
the 11th century, was slow to expand and four hundred years later had
only grown to 485 souls. Yet as, at that time, it shared its own rotten
borough Member of Parliament for "Snape-cum-Aldeburgh" significance rather than size was obviously the criteria applied. It now
consists of over 300 houses and 600 people.
[A lifted copy of this part of article can be found on the Parish's site -