Somerleyton, Suffolk

Description
Somerleyton, a parish, with a village, in Suffolk, on the river Waveney and the Lowestoft and Yarmouth branch of the G.E.R., 5 1/2 miles NW of Lowestoft, and 8 S from Yarmouth. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Lowestoft. Acreage, 1372; population of the civil parish, 569; of the ecclesiastical, 657. There is a parish council consisting of nine members. Somerleyton Hall, the seat of the Crossley family (the chief landowners), is a fine mansion in the Elizabethan style, richly furnished, and containing some valuable modern paintings. It is surrounded by beautiful pleasure gardens and a well-timbered deer park of 400 acres. There is a manufactory of bricks, tiles, and earthenware. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Norwich; net value, £251 with residence. The church, which was rebuilt in 1854, is a building of flint and stone, with a peal of six bells. The chancel has been restored in the modern Decorated style. There is a fine Perpendicular oak screen with paintings of sixteen saints on the panels and in good preservation. There are also Free Methodist and Methodist New Connexion chapels.