Sudbury,
Suffolk

There were a number of places I wanted to expand of as I wrote this tour. I try to keep the Guidl stops short and uncluttered with unnecessary information. My natural inclination to throw around facts and trivia is constantly fighting this, so I thought I'd add a couple of additional points here. Our grim Little Bear always wants to bring everything down to tales of crime and punishment too, so I have to work hard to keep most of the stories on the positive side. If you've ever listened to our Guidls, you'll know I fail more than succeed! 

While I was writing about the Victorian bathing pool I very nearly ruined the picturesque seen on swans on the Stour by telling everyone about an ongoing unsolved crime associated with the area.  In August of 2020 a bag of bones was pulled from the river between Croft Bridge and Meadow Croft. The remains were determined to be that of a man aged between 50 and 60 at the time of his death. The body had received injuries to its head and the victim’s hands had been removed and were never found. It is one of the reasons that police have been working on the theory that he was the victim of organized crime. Radiocarbon dating put his death between 2008 and 2012. A number of items, including the carrier bags used in addition to the black bin liners, also date to this time. It was determined that the body had been stored somewhere dry and airless in the intervening years and some of the body parts were partially mummified. It is possible that his killers needed to move the body or even that someone unconnected to the crime found him and had their own reasons for not wanting to involve the police, so just tossed the remains in the river to become someone else’s concern. The victim has never been identified and the case remains open. I couldn't include this on the tour for obvious reasons, but if you visit this little stretch of river, spare a thought for the man without a name. 

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I also considered adding the site of the leper hospital to the tour, but like many of the places I find interesting, it has been completely lost and so not very interesting to the average listener. It was founded in 1272 by John Colneys, who was himself a leper. It consisted of three cottages, one of which he occupied himself in his role of governor. The original buildings were demolished in 1858 to be replaced with cottages that would support the St Leonard's Cottage Hospital. If you want to see the site, it is at 132 Melford Road. You can see the hospital site on old maps. Did you know that St Leonard was the second most popular Saint for dedications when it came to leper hosptials?  St Leonard was known for befriending the sick, as well as other prisoners and captives. Often you will see cottage hospitals on old maps named St Leonards, and almost always these have their origins as lazar houses, or leper hospitals. The highly contagious nature of the disease means they are usually located on the out boundaries of towns and settlements, even if many have now been overtaken by modern development. 

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One side-quest I ended up on when visiting Sudbury last was the photographing on closed and 'lost' pubs. They were once the community centres of local life and so many of the town's stories would have been played out within their walls. I have photographed about 25 of Sudbury's pubs, out of more than 65 pubs, taverns, inns, beer houses and hotels the town once had. That could be a tour in it's own right!