(sib)+Community+perspective

**A community perspective from the 1840s to 1920s contains entries for the community from the Suffolk Directories of White (1844) and Kelly (1929) and William Dutt’s gazeteer of Suffolk (1927; first prepared in the 1890s)**

White SIBTON is a pleasant straggling village, on an acclivity south of the river Yox, or Badingham, 2 miles W. of Yoxford, 5 miles N. by W. of Saxmundham, and 7 miles S. of Halesworth. Its parish contains 564 souls, and 2680a. of fertile land, including the hamlet of Sibton Green, more than a mile N. of the village, and several neat scattered houses. Wm. de Casineto, or Cheney, founded a Cistercian Abbey here about the year 1150, and dedicated it to the Blessed Virgin. It was so richly endowed, that at the dissolusion its revenues were valued at £259. 15s. 8d. per annum. It was granted by the abbot and convent themselves to Thomas Duke of Norfolk, Anthony Rous, Esq., and Nicholas Hare, in 1536. The Abbey House, a commodious mansion, built chiefly out of the ruins of the monastery, is occupied by J.E. Spink, Esq. J.F.Scrivener, Esq., is lord of the manor of Sibton, with its members, and Lord Huntingfield is lord of the manor of Sibton Hall, now a farm house, but a great part of the parish belongs to other proprietors, the largest of whom is Robert Sayer, Esq., of Sibton Park, whose mansion is a large and handsome structure, erected about 15 years ago, and standing on a pleasant eminence nearly in the centre of a fertile estate of about 1000 acres, (partly in Yoxford,) a large portion of which is laid out in beautifully timbered park meadows, pleasure grounds, and gardens, refreshed by a fine lake, well stored with fish. The Church (St. Peter) is a fine Gothic fabric, with a tower and five bells. The benefice is a discharged vicarage, valued in K.B. at £8. 8s. 4d., and in 1835 at £143. 13s. 2d. Robert Sager, Esq., is patron, and the Rev. S. M, Westhorpe, M.A., is the incumbent, and has a good residence, rebuilt in 1821, and about 10A, of glebe. The tithes were commuted in 1843, but the great tithes belong to the landowners. The Primitive Methodists have a small chapel here, built in 1836. The Town Estste consists of a house called the Town House, let in four tenements for £12 a year, 1A, 1R. 7P., adjoining the globe, let for £l. 15s.; 11 A. 1R. 30P, in Huntingfield, let for £17 ; and a house and 3A. 3R. 24P, in Badingham, let for £14 a year. The latter was purchased in 1658, with £52 derived from a bequest to the poor by Edmund Cutting, in 1639, and £28 belonging to the parishioners. After paying £2. 12s. a year to provide bread for the poor, in consideration of Cutting's Charity, the rents are applied with the church rates. In 1719, John and Dorothea Scrivener settled an estate of 32A. 0R. 32P. in Sibton and Peasenhall, and directed one-half of the yearly rent thereof to be paid to the Vicar of Sibton:, for reading prayers every Wednesday, Friday, and holy-day in the year, and the other half to be employed in teaching poor children reading, writing, and arithmetic, and putting out apprentices. The estate is let for £55 per annum, half of which is paid to a schoolmaster and mistress for teaching 12 poor boys and 12 poor girls. A new School was built some years ago. Marked * live on Sibton Green. * Ayton Abner, shopkeeper Howard Joseph, joiner Larter James, shopkeeper Pipe Robert, vict. White Horse Powells James, parish clerk Sayer Robert, Esq. Sibton Park Spink John E. E. Esq. Abbey House Turner John, corn miller Vv estharpe Rev. Sterling Moseley,M.A. Vicarage White Wm. joiner Wincup Wm. blacksmith FARMERS Bendall George Catt James Daines John Girling Thomas, Hill House Goodwin John Gowing John Hilling William, Mill Farm Jarman Thomas Martin Wm. * Pinkney David Payne Geo. Hall Pipe George Rumsey John Stannard Ephm. * Winder John White Charles * Webb Robert Wright Wm.

//Kelly //

SIBTON is a parish 3 miles west from Darsham station on the Ipswich and Lowestoft section of the London and North Eastern railway, and 6 north-west from Saxmundham, in the Eye division of the county, Blything hundred, petty sessional division and union, Halesworth and Saxmundham county court district, rural deanery of South Dunwich, archdeaconry of Suffolk and diocese of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich. The church of St. Peter is a handsome Early English building of flint with stone dressings, restored in 1872 by the late John William Brooke esq. of Sibton Park, and by Mrs. Scrivener, of Sibton Abbey; it consists of chancel, nave, north aisle and a western embattled tower with 4 pinnacles and containing 5 bells: the church contains a richly carved oak roof and a pulpit of Elizabethan date, once much higher: the font is ancient and has an octagonal basin with the symbols of the Evangelists: the south doorway is Norman: in the church are various memorials to the families of Chapman, alias Barker, and Scrivener, including a brass to John Chapman, 1475, and others to Edmund Chapman, 1511. and Edm. Chapman and Margaret his wife, 8 sons and 5 daughters, 1574, and to John Chapman, 1582: on the north wall of the chancel is a fine mural tablet to Sir Edmund Barker kt. and Mary (Cooper) his wife, and others to the Rev. Charles Scrivener, 1737, John Freston Scrivener, 1797, and to Dorothea Scrivener, d. 18 Feb. 1734, ad. 85: there are 280 sittings. The register dates from the year 1558. The living is a discharged vicarage, net yearly value £300, with 4 a of glebe, and residence in the gift of J. E. Brooke esq. J.P. and held since 1898 by the Rev. Ronald Cameron Scrimgeour M.A. of Brase-nose College, Oxford. There is a Primitive Methodist chapel here. Here are the remains of a Cistercian abbey, founded by W. de Cheyney in 1149, colonised from Warden Abbey (Beds), and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin; at the Dissolution its revenues were valued at £250 15s. 7.5d. yearly, Sibton Abbey, the property of Capt. Egerton Bagot Byrd Levett-Scrivener E.N. (ret.), J.P. is now (1929) unoccupied. Sibton Park, the seat of John Kendall Brooke esq. J.P. is an elegant mansion, surrounded by pleasure grounds, intersected by the river Minsmere, with a well-wooded park, covering an area of 200 acres. Capt. E. B. B. Levett-Scrivener E.N. (ret.), J.P. who is lord of the manor of Sibton and J. K. Brooke esq. J.P. are the principal landowners. The soil is chiefly heavy sub-soil, clay. The chief crops are wheat, barley, roots, beans and peas. The area is 2,770 acres of land and 7 of water; the population in 1921 was 348 in the civil parish and 365 in the ecclesiastical parish.

By a Provisional Order, which came into operation March 35, 1885, a detached part of this parish win amalgamated with Peasenhall.

Parish Clerk, F. T. Tuson. Letters through Saxmundham via Yoxford. Peasenhall (the adjoining village) is the nearest M. 0. & T. office

//Dutt//

Sibton Abbey (3 m. W. of Darsham) was founded in 1150 by William FitzRobert for monks of the Cistercian order, and was colonised from Warden Abbey. Previous to the dissolution it was offered by the abbot to Thomas, Duke of Northumberland, father of Catherine Howard, who, with the sanction of Henry VIII., accepted it. It was held by his family until 1611, when it was bought by John Scrivener, an ancestor of its present owner. The remains consist of the mere shell of a building and a few fragments of walls. The wall on the N. formed the S. side of the church; at its E. end is the angle of the nave and transept. On the S. of it is the site of the cloister. The refectory remains, but does not abut on to the cloister in accordance with the usual plan of Cistercian monasteries. Of the kitchen and its adjoining offices some pieces of wall remain; and in the S. wall of the cloister are some traces of a lavatory. A font preserved here was originally in Darsham church. The parish church has a Norm. doorway; the rest is chiefly Perp. The nave roof is of oak, richly carved; and there is an Elizabethan pulpit. Note brasses to John Chapman, 1475; Edmund Chapman, l511; Edmund Chapman, (curiously inscribed); and John Chapman, 1582. These Chapmans were ancestors of Sir Edmund Barker, to whom there is a mural tablet.