Historian Martyn Taylor explores the ancient transport links between Mildenhall and Bury St Edmunds
Skirting past the vast Mildenhall housing estate that was started in 1946 from Bury St Edmunds to Mildenhall, if driving by road, is just over 12 miles, going through the villages of Fornham All Saints, Hengrave, Flempton, Lackford and Icklingham.
On Thomas Warren’s map of 1776, the road leaving Bury then was known as The Heath Way.
A far older part of this journey from around 3400-3000BC, extending from Pigeon Lane for 1.87km to Fornham All Saints, was discovered in an archaeological dig of June 2016 in preparation for today's sprawling Marham Park development, the remnants of a cursus. Once a Neolithic earthwork enclosure with parallel banks, this could have followed astronomical alignments, the heavens above or even had ritual connotations with ancestor worship.
Another journey undertaken in the past was via the River Lark, though this was somewhat ad hoc until 1699 when an Act of Parliament gave permission to a Henry Ashley to make the river navigable from Long Common, just below Mildenhall Mill, to Eastgate Bridge in Bury. It was to be a commercial venture, toll charges applying, but curiously pleasure boats were excluded.
Throughout the 18th century the river was improved by dredging and staunches and by 1716 a commodity lent its name to part of the Lark and it is still remembered by some Bury folk as The Coal Rivers. Bury coal merchants Moody & Betts at the time paid £55 in toll charges.
By the 1840s, wealthy Bury family the Cullums were involved in the running of the Lark Navigation. Unfortunately, the Bury Corporation denied the Rev Sir Thomas Gery Cullum (TGC), the mover and shaker of this scheme, to bring it into the town, so barges had to finish their journey at St Saviour's Wharf.
Despite a protracted legal battle, what finished any chance TGC had of winning was the railways coming to Bury in 1846.
Near the wharf, Thomas Ridley, an entrepreneurial grocer of the town, rented from TGC a large coal storage warehouse. When Mr Ridley relinquished it, two brothers, Robert and John Dunnell, added a maltings to the site remodelled into homes for Havebury Housing a few years ago.
Interestingly, still visible on the end of the building are several round metal stabilising pattresses marked with 'TGC 1851' , but one is different – it has R BOBY BURY ST EDS, the only public vestige of the company other than the Robert Boby Way sign in the town.
Martyn Taylor is a local historian, author and Bury Tour Guide. His latest book, Going Underground: Bury St Edmunds, is widely available.
