Needham Market, Suffolk

Description
Needham Market, a town and an ecclesiastical parish in Barking civil parish, Suffolk. The town stands on the river Gipping and on the G.E.B., 8 1/2 miles NNW of Ipswich; was formerly a seat of the woollen manufacture and of considerably more importance than now; had a weekly market, from which it took the latter part of its name, and a fair on 28 Oct., both of which have been discontinued; is well built, and contains several handsome houses; is a seat of petty sessions and a polling place; and has a head post office, a railway station, a bank, a town-hall erected in 1866, containing a large room used for public meetings, a court with magistrates' retiring rooms and a police station with cells for prisoners, two good hotels, a Congregational chapel, a Friends' meeting-house, a subscription reading-room, an endowed grammar school founded by Sir Francis Theobald in 1632 and now, open to scholars from Needham, Barking, and Darmsden, almshouses for eight persons, a cottage home erected in 1858 for four inmates, and other charities. The town's area comprises nearly 1000 acres. The ecclesiastical parish is con-terminate with the town, and has a population of 1313. The manor belongs to the Earl of Ashbumham. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Norwich; gross value, £74. The church is a large and ancient building of stone and flint in the Perpendicular style; it has a finely carved hammer beam roof and a good stained E window.