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Denham lies in the north-east corner of Suffolk, close to where the River Waveney forms the county boundary with Norfolk.
Its story is solidly one of country pursuits and rural occupations. Being next to the great town of Eye, with its castle and abbey; its ancient guilds and grammar school; it was bound to live somewhat under its shadow. But it also derived some stability from it and was able to revel in quiet rural anonymity.
To the north it borders Hoxne with its religious shrine to St Edmund, which was immensely popular in medieval times. Thousands of pilgrims must have flocked through Denham, and perhaps stayed in the village overnight.
Its proximity to the wet lands of the Waveney valley enabled it to be part of the famous hemp growing and weaving industry there, supplying sails to many British ships when it was becoming the world's greatest sea power.
Denham is a small village whose population has only ever risen above 300 in the middle of the nineteenth century, at the height of prosperity of agriculture in East Anglia. The name in Saxon means “meadow or enclosure in a valley” and this accurately describes what it was. Down the centre of the village, from north to south, runs a stream with what were meadows on both sides, falling from 130 ft to 100 ft above sea level in a little more than two miles. The land then rises to a height of about 160ft on either side of the valley.
The land was enclosed early on, probably to keep sheep, so the hedgerows were sinuous, complementing the landscape in a way that the straight nineteenth century field boundaries never could. There are woodlands, one of them, Coldhams, is considered to be medieval in origin.
The farming was truly mixed until the last two hundred years. Up to 1800 there was a strong arable tradition as well being part of Arthur Young's “Dairying Region of Suffolk” in 1786. Soon after that dairying declined, as did the growing of hemp, in favour of wheat, barley and flax. However dairy cows, beef cattle, sheep and pigs continued to be part of the scene for another 150 years, which necessitated some pasture, as did the work horses which were so important to the productivity of the land. In the last fifty years, in common with the rest of East Anglia there has been a move to almost total arable farming; wheat, barley, sugar beet and oil seed rape, although there is a commercial fruit farm in the parish.
Despite its rural quietness there has also been an element of rebelliousness. There were Congregational Protestants here in the seventeenth century and Roman Catholic Recusants in the eighteenth. In the nineteenth century it was one of a minority of Suffolk parishes where there were violent protests against the introduction of farm machinery, in particular the threshing machines which deprived men of winter work.
Now the main settlement is in Denham Green on the east side of the village, leaving the church quite isolated. Why this is remains a mystery. Two facts may be significant: firstly College Farm seems to be older than Denham Hall, which may indicate that the first Lord of the Manor originally lived there. Secondly, Denham Hall and all of the other listed buildings in the parish date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, suggesting a change in the axis of the village at that time.
Much more recently, during the Second World War, there was an airfield just over the boundary in Horham. Most of the living quarters, the officer's club and the hospital were clustered around the village of Denham. This had significant social effect on the village, in particular on the former Green Man pub, which was regularly used by American airmen. Denham residents were invited to big occasions, celebrations and festivals at the air base. In April, after the 300th mission, Glen Miller and his AEF were invited to the Red Feather Club to celebrate the occasion. Such heady days abruptly ceased when the USAAF departed in August 1945 and Denham reverted to its former sleepy self.
(condensed from “The Story of Denham” by Ian Pitcairn, which is a valuable source of further information)
War-time history
Much of the history of Denham's role inthe Second World War is illustrated at The Red Feather Club and the 95th Bomb Group Hospital museum.
Further in formation and opening times can be found on their web sites: