Museum of East Anglian Life with Izobelle

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Where shall we go today with Izobelle? Well, not far from her home is the Museum of East Anglian Life, and that is where we headed.

The Museum of East Anglian Life is one of the biggest Museums in Suffolk. It occupies over 75 acres of countryside in the heart of Stowmarket.
The land was originally part of the Home Farm for the Abbot’s Hall estate. The estate's history dates from medieval times when it was an outlying manor for St Osyth’s Priory in Essex. It passed through numerous owners until it was purchased by the Longe family in 1903.
Huge changes in the 1950’s and ‘60s meant England was in danger of losing long established skills, equipment and buildings if something was not done to rescue them. Individual collectors, local farmer Jack Carter and the Suffolk Local History Council worked to collect, preserve and display objects from rural East Anglia. After several years of temporary exhibitions the Misses Vera and Ena Longe placed 70 acres of farmland, Abbot’s Hall, its gardens, as well as 18/20 Crowe Street, in trust to be used as a Museum.
The Museum of East Anglian Life opened in 1967 and is a modern memorial to this foresight and vision.


This is the Blacksmith`s forge from Grundisburgh and built C 1750. For nearly two hundred years this smithy was a bustling and vibrant place, hot from the glowing furnace and filled with the din of metal being hammered. 
Its last owner, Frederick Joseph Crapnell, took on the premises in 1913. Both his father and grandfather had been blacksmiths. It was from his father that Frederick learnt the trade. In 1968 he retired at the age of 86. Four years later the timber built smithy and travis (where the horses were shod) were saved from demolition and re-erected here.


Settling House from Bury St Edmunds. Built 1864. The historic Settling House, also known as the Round House, Tally House, or Counting House, sat at the heart of Bury St Edmunds cattle market for over 130 years. The Victorian Gothic building, with its distinctive octagonal design, was rebuilt on the museum site in 2011.
The Settling House was originally used by traders to complete their business, with the toll collector given permission to sell ginger beer and buns. The building soon became the central hub of the cattle market, the place where traders met and tickets to the auctions were handed out.
At the Museum, this building represents a time when the market was not just a place for meeting people and doing business but the symbolic meeting point between town and country, and the place where the dependence of one upon the other was most apparent.


Izobelle just ran straight to the cow and started `milking it` - she doesn't miss a trick!


Doing some exercise before we move on.


An ancient caravan parked for an event the following weekend. 


Among the things Izobelle tried her hand at - a spot of weaving. I think that another time we will bring Izobelle back to try her hand at a few other things. She was very interested in the parts we did see.


'Friends of the Lake' sculpture, Needham Lake is a wooden sculpture by Ben Platt-Mills, commissioned and funded in 2001 by Mid Suffolk District Council, is situated on the bank of Needham Lake. It represents a mother and daughter, with the former holding the neck of a swan.
In the afternoon we visited Needham lakes where the sculpture above is situated, and after a short walk and some playing in the play area, headed for home.

Location: Iliffe Way, Stowmarket IP14 1DL

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