Kelly
WRENTHAM is a parish and small town a miles from the sea at Covehithe, on the road from Ipswich to Saxmnndham, Lowestoft and Yarmouth, 4.5 miles north-by-west from Sonthwold terminal station on a line from Halestrorth, 8 miles south-south-east from Beccles, in the Lowestoft division of the county, Blything hundred, petty sessional division and union, Halesworth and Saxmundham county court district, rural deanery of Beccles, archdeaconry of Suffolk and diocese of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich. The church of St. Nicholas is an ancient structure of flint in the Early English style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, south porch and a lofty embattled western tower containing 6 bells: the organ was erected in 1889: in 1831 the church was extensively repaired and the seating extended, and in 1853 it was renovated and the chancel furnished with oak stalls and a north aisle, and a stained window added: the tower commands an extensive view of the coast and sea, and during the threatened invasion by Napoleon I. in 1804, it was used as a signal tower, and a wooden signal-house for the sentinels was erected in the churchyard by order of the Government; there are 370 sittings. The register dates from the year 1693. The living is a rectory, net yearly value £538, with residence and 33 acres of glebe, in the gift of Sir Thomas V. S. Gooch bart. and held since 1933 by the Rev. Francis Rochfort Bonsey M.A. of Hertford College, Oxford. Here is a Congregational chapel, founded in 1649, with sittings for 300 persons, also Primitive Methodist and Wesleyan chapels. A cemetery, la. 3r. 8p. was formed in 1865 at a cost of £235, and is under the control of the Parish Council. Wrentham Town Hall, completed in 1862, from funds provided in part by the late Miss 8. O. Leman, who bequeathed £225 for the welfare of the inhabitants, and in part by the Rev. Stephen Clissold M.A. a former rector, and presented to the parish by the trustees as a war memorial in 1900, is an elegant building in the centre of the village, with a clock; the large hall will hold 400 persons: the reading room, erected in 1858, is available for 130 persons; the library contains upwards of 600 volumes: there is a mural tablet of oak erected in memory of the men of the parish who fell in the Great War, 1914-18. Sir Thomas T. S. Gooch bart. J.P. who is lord of the manor, and William Nelson Overland esq. are the principal landowners. The soil is various; subsoil, heavy. The chief crops are wheat, barley, oats and turnips. The area is 2,334 acres; the population in 1931 was 944. Post, M. O., T. & T. E. D. Office. Letters arrive from Beccles
PUBLIC ESTABLISHMENTS.
Cemstery, Ernest Mortimer.clerk to the burial authority County Police Station Shipwrecked Fishermen & Mariners' Royal Benevolent Society; Hon. Representative, W. G. Lilly
Town Hall, Stanley George Sawyer, hon. sec Volunteer Fire Brigade
Carrier to Halesworth.-Edward Goldspink, daily Carrier to Lowestoft.-James Nunn Conveyance.-Motor omnibus calls here from Southwold to Lowestoft.
Dutt
Wrentham (4 m. N. by W. of Southwold) is a very small town on the road from Lowestoft to Southwold. It is about 2 m. from the sea at Covehithe. Its church was erected in the reign of Henry III., but little of the original work remains. The tower is Perp., with good flint and stone panelling. Note (1) a processional cross recess; (2) against the N. wall of the chancel a brass to Humphrey Brewster (1593), who is represented in armour of the Stuart period; (3) another brass in the S. wall; and (4) fragments of old glass in a window in the N. aisle. The tower commands a wide view of sea and coast, and was used as a signal tower at the time of Napoleon's threatened invasion. Among the rectors was Dr William Wotton, who wrote " Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning," a work ridiculed by Swift in his " Battle of Books." The Brewsters, above referred to, were a family of considerable importance at the time of the Commonwealth. Robert Brewster, who then lived at Wrentham Hall, sat in the Long Parliament for the borough of Dunwich. The Hall, built by Humphrey Brewster in the sixteenth century, was pulled down in 1810. An old sundial which belonged to it is now at Benacre Hall, and in a house at Holton, near Halesworth, is a stained-glass window with coats of arms of the Brewster alliances. Benacre Hall (see Benacre) adjoins Wrentham, and the picturesque ruins at Covehithe are near by.
Church view
http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/wrentham.htm