Great Finborough

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Great Finborough is a rural village in Suffolk, England about 3 miles south-west of Stowmarket and near one of the sources of the River Gipping. Route 707 bus service operated by Beeston's connects Finborough with Sudbury, Bildeston and Stowmarket.

The Radio 1 DJ John Peel was a prominent member of the village (though his house is mostly in Little Finborough) for 33 years and is buried in the churchyard. In the 1970s he and his wife Sheila founded a local youth club entitled Great Finborough International Airport.[1] A new youth club has since been formed by the youth of Great Finborough with help from local parents and grants from the council.

The Bog Race is a key part of village life. It happens on Easter Monday every year. It is a battle between Haughley and Great Finborough. The race starts at the pub, The Chestnut Horse, where 15 or so men from Haughley and Great Finborough get considerably drunk and are taken to a nearby farm, Boyton Hall, where they have to race over the fields, about a mile, to get to the pub with the scroll. The first man at the pub with the scroll wins and is declared the winner over-all and then, that village has won for that year.

Great Finborough also has a Primary School, Great Finborough CEVC Primary School, founded in 1873. The original buildings, to which two new classrooms were added in 2000. The school's catchment area includes Great Finborough and the neighbouring village of Buxhall; places are offered first to children from the two villages and then to others from beyond the catchment area up to the school's intake limit. The primary school is a feeder for Combs Middle School, to which pupils transfer at the age of nine.

John Green Crosse was born at Boyton Hall, near Great Finborough, in 1790. He became a surgeon in Norwich.