Woodbridge, Suffolk

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Woodbridge
Woodbridge, with Woodbridge Tide Mill in the background
Woodbridge shown within Suffolk
Population	10,956 (2001 Census)
OS grid reference	TM272491
District	Suffolk Coastal
Shire county	Suffolk
Region	East
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	WOODBRIDGE
Postcode district	IP12
Dialling code	01394
Police	Suffolk
Fire	Suffolk
Ambulance	East of England
European Parliament	East of England
UK Parliament	Suffolk Coastal
List of places: UK • England • Suffolk

Coordinates: 52°05′37″N 1°19′04″E / 52.0935, 1.3179

Woodbridge is a town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. It is in the south east of England, not far from the coast. It lies along the River Deben, with a population of about 7,480 although this seems larger due to the number of surrounding villages. The town is served by Woodbridge railway station on the Ipswich-Lowestoft East Suffolk Line. Woodbridge is twinned with Mussidan in France.

[edit] History

The earliest record of Woodbridge is in the mid 10th century, when it was acquired by St. Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, who made it a part of the endowment of the monastery he helped to refound at Ely, Cambridgeshire in AD 970. Woodbridge did not acquire its own monastery until about 1193, when a small priory of Austin Canons was founded by Ernald Rufus.

It was a centre for boat-building, rope-making and sail-making since the Middle Ages. Edward III and Sir Francis Drake had Elizabethan era fighting ships built in Woodbridge.

Around the town there are various buildings from the Tudor, Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras. The town has a restored tide mill, one of only 4 in the UK, and one of the earliest — a mill was first recorded on this site in 1170, operated by the Augustinian Canons. In 1536, it passed to King Henry VIII. In 1564, Queen Elizabeth I granted the mill to Thomas Seckford. In 1577 he founded Woodbridge School and the Seckford Almshouses, for the poor of Woodbridge.

Sutton Hoo, a group of low grassy mounds famous for turning up Anglo-Saxon treasure of one of the earliest English kings, Rædwald, overlooks Woodbridge from the Eastern Bank of the Deben.

The so-called Rendlesham Forest Incident took place in nearby Rendlesham Forest in 1980. Unexplained lights were seen in the sky close to RAF Woodbridge, a United States Airforce base, and there were claims that a UFO had landed in the forest. The incident continues to interest ufologists and vigorous debates take place between those who believe that an alien spacecraft landed there and the sceptics who offer alternative explanations.

Woodbridge has its own Brass Band, the Woodbridge Excelsior Band, who were formed in 1846 and are the oldest community brass band in East Anglia.

In addition, local folklore has it that the route from the river to the top of Drybridge Hill (via Church Street, the Market Hill and Seckford Street) is the hill which was marched up by the Grand Old Duke of York in the popular Nursery Rhyme.