MENDLESHAM, a parish (formerly a market
town) in the hundred of HARTISMERE, county of SUFFOLK,
15 miles (N. N.W.) from Ipswich, and 79 (N.E.)
from London, containing 1250 inhabitants. The town is
situated in a deep miry soil, and consists of two long
and irregular streets; the houses are of mean appearance,
and the adjacent roads in bad condition. A market
was granted in the reign of Edward I., but has been.,
long disused. A fair is held on the 2nd of October
and the following day, for cattle and toys. Two constables
are elected at the manorial courts. The living is a
vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Sudbury, and diocese
of Norwich, rated in the king's books at £14. 9,2.,
and in the patronage of the Rev. Robert Field. The
church, dedicated to St. Mary, is a handsome structure.
There is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists,
In 1473, Robert Lake bequeathed, for charitable purposes,
property in land, which, with other benefactions,
produces about £350 per annum, from which £20 per
annum is paid for the support of a charity school for
fifteen poor children; £20 per annum for the maintenance
of a Sunday school; and nearly £ 200 per annum
is distributed by the trustees in weekly gratuities to the
necessitous poor. There are six unendowed almshouses.;
About the close of the seventeenth century, an ancient
silver crown, weighing sixty ounces, was found here 5
and, in 1758, a gold ring, bearing an inscription in Runic
characters, was turned up by the plough: from
these and other circumstances, Mendlesham is supposed,
to have been the residence of Redwald, one of the
kings of the East Angles.