East of England Visitor Guide 2018

MILDENHALL
Mildenhall is an attractive medieval
market town surrounded by the River Lark.
The town centres on the Market Place
with its distinctive 16th century hexagonal
Market Cross - used for hanging criminals
years ago - and the Town Pump. The parish
pump still stands in the market place,
as a reminder that piped water was not
available until the 1940s.
A market is held here every Friday and was
established by Royal Charter in 1412. During
the Second World War, Mildenhall was an
important bomber base and since 1950 has
been home to the United States Air Force,
fast becoming one of the most important
American installations in this country.
St Mary’s Church is one of the finest in
Suffolk and the town has a good number
of restaurants, shops and other amenities.
Mildenhall Stadium hosts greyhound, stock
car and speedway racing.
NEEDHAM MARKET
Needham Market is a small historic town
set in the Gipping Valley. Once a thriving
wool town, the onset of the plague resulted
in the town being ‘chained’ off from the
outside world between 1663-65 to isolate it
and contain the disease. Despite the plan
succeeding, the town still lost two-thirds
of its population and did not recover for
some two hundred years until the arrival of
the railway. The town has two road names
linked to the plague: Chainhouse Road,
named after the chains that ran across the
East end of the town, and The Causeway,
a modern variation of ‘the corpseway’, so
called because of the route that plague
victims were transported out of town.
The town boasts many unusual,
independent and specialist shops, and fine
Georgian and Tudor architecture.
NEWMARKET
Whether you’re a devoted horseracing
fan or just a lover of beautiful English
towns, Newmarket is sure to appeal. It has
long been considered the birthplace of
thoroughbred horseracing since successive
Royal Family members came to appreciate
the flat land as an ideal location for
galloping their horses.
Racing’s early administrative body, The
Jockey Club, created its home here. If this
is your particular fascination, you’ll be
pleased to find the National Stud here, the
National Heritage Centre for Horseracing
& Sporting Art, Tattersalls and also the
impressive Newmarket Racecourses
themselves, which welcomes big-names in
music at its summer concerts, ‘Newmarket
Nights’.
There are other places of interest for the
curious visitor too. Newmarket boasts
impressive features such as the grand
Clock Tower on the High Street, the
King Edward VII Memorial Gardens, the
War Memorial Gardens and the elegant
Cleveland House in Old Station Road.
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