Monday 20 March 2017

Monday.


Motored over to Ely  this  morning for a sibling lunch with  Ann's  three brothers and their partners.
Lunched at the Fire Engine house -  the meal  was  as good as ever- in  one sense rather better, in that when the time  came to deal with  the bill, Michael, David and Tim refused to let me pay our quarter on the grounds  that it was Ann's birthday (her 77th !!!!!)  later in the week, and  this was their joint birthday present to her- very  civil of them and much appreciated. After lunch we  set out from Ely at  about 3.30 p.m.


Turned off the  A14 this  side of Bury Saint Edmund's and  came home by the back roads and lanes.  Somewhere near the  village of  Drinkstone  (strange name for a village- must look it up) We saw an early (well, 18th century, anyway) post windmill,


and, about 100 to a 150 yards from the post mill, a rather rarer (but slightly later)


smock mill. Why they should have been built so near to each other, I don't know  so can't  say -   but interesting.



A few miles further we came across Saint Mary's Church Gedding, which dates from the  12 century. It's a pretty little  church, with some 15th century pews inside. It's  a  bit of  a job to find this church, but it's well  worth  the effort. 

Fom the Churchyard can be seen, about half a mile or so away, the below photographed, Gedding  Hall.  It was built around the middle of the 1400s.   



As I  believe I may have said before - full  of surprises, Suffolk.


3 comments:

Crowbard said...

Hi Mike, Drinkstone is mentioned in the Domesday book as Drencestuna held by the Abbey of St. Etheldreda at Ely. (It was worth £2 in 1066, about £5 in 1070, and £3 in 1086 to the Abbott).
The Dictionary of British Place-names places it in the Thedwastre hundred and records its name as Drincestuna c. 1050 and Drencestuna in 1086 meaning Farmstead of a man called Drengr, from the old Scandinavian personal name preceding the Old English word tun meaning a farmstead.

Crowbard said...

In Norse mythology Drengr is one of the sons of Karl and Snør in the Rígsþula
Old Norse drengr = 'young man', 'bold man'
Danish dreng = 'boy'
Norwegian dreng = 'farmhand'
Swedish dräng = 'farmhand'

Crowbard said...

The name of the Hundred of Thedwastre indicates the moot/wapentake was held at a tree on the land of a lord we would nowadays call Edward or Ted, Theodward's tree.