Needham Market

Needham Market is a small town in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England, set in the Gipping Valley. Nearby villages include Barking, Darmsden, Badley and Creeting St Mary. The town is located just east of the A14 trunk road, between Ipswich to the south and Stowmarket to the north. The town is on the Great Eastern Main Line (GEML) between Stowmarket and Ipswich, with the Needham Lake and the River Gipping located just east of the GEML close to the railway station. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the town had a population of 4700 residents.

The town of Needham, Massachusetts, was named after Needham Market.

History
It initially grew around the wool combing industry, until the onset of the Bubonic plague, which swept the town from 1663 to 1665. To prevent the spread of the disease, the town was chained at either end, which succeeded in its task but at the cost of two-thirds of the populace. The town did not recover for nearly two hundred years, with the canalisation of the River Gipping in the late 18th century and the introduction of the railway.

Modern Needham Market contains two road names that are linked to the plague. Chainhouse Road, named after the chains that ran across the East end of the town. The Causeway, is a modern variation of 'the corpseway' so called because of the route that plague victims were transported out of town, to neighbouring Barking Church for interment.

Notable buildings
Notable buildings in the town include:


 * The 15th-century Church of St. John the Baptist, originally a chapel of ease for the parish of Barking (with a unique double-hammerbeam roof).
 * The medieval Limes Hotel which dates back to around 1500.
 * The Old Town Hall which was designed by the English architect, Frederick Barnes and completed in 1866.

Sport and leisure
Needham Market has a Non-League football club known as the Needham Market F.C. who play at Bloomfields. They have been very successful over recent years after reaching the semi-finals of the 2010/2011 FA Vase season.

The town is on the route of the Dunwich Dynamo annual cycle ride, which takes place overnight. It is usually scheduled to take place on the Saturday night closest to the full moon in July.

The Needham Lake provides leisure facilities and a wildlife habitat which is located just east of the GEML and the railway station. The lake is located on a nature reserve with the River Gipping running just east of it. It is a great destination for tourists. The lake was initially a gravel pit before being converted to a lake.

Other attractions in the town include the Alder Carr Farm, selling one of Suffolk's best ice cream.

Media
Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC East and ITV Anglia. Television signals are received from either the Tacolneston or Sudbury TV transmitters.

Local radio stations are BBC Radio Suffolk, Heart East, Nation Radio Suffolk, Greatest Hits Radio Ipswich & Suffolk, and Ipswich Community Radio, a community based station.

The town is served by the local newspapers, Ipswich Star and East Anglian Daily Times.

Climate
Like most of the UK, Ireland and much of France, Needham Market has an oceanic climate. This means that both the winter and summer temperatures are mild with not a huge difference between the winter and summer temperatures.

Rail
The Great Eastern Main Line (GEML) runs through the town, with the railway station providing an hourly service to Ipswich and Cambridge. It is a very small unstaffed station managed by Greater Anglia. Unlike every other GEML station, there are no direct services to London and Norwich. This means that passengers heading towards those destinations are required to change at Ipswich and Stowmarket respectively. It is also the quietest railway station on the GEML.

Road
The A14 (although then the A45) once ran directly through the town, but a bypass was built in the 1970s leaving the road now known as the B1113. This has left the town with good road links to the surrounding area, but with less traffic than before.

First Eastern Counties (a sub-brand of FirstGroup), operates the 88 route, which serves the town and has bus services to Ipswich and Stowmarket twice an hour (once every 30 minutes) on weekdays.

Notable people
Notable people from Needham Market include:
 * Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), chemist, theologian and natural philosopher, was Needham's parish priest from 1755–61
 * Dykes Alexander (1763–1849), Quaker businessman and minister.
 * Samuel Herbert Maw (1881-1952), architect, delineator and cartographer whose career took place mostly in Canada
 * June Brown (1927–2022), actress who played Dot Cotton in EastEnders
 * Ros Scott (born 1957), Liberal Democrat peer, a former district and county councillor for the town, chose it for her title.