Just as a reminder, here is a short description of what the Trimley Villages are like today - and what we would prefer them to be like in years to come. What the villages are is what STAG is fighting to retain - villages which retain their individual characters, villages which remain as villages and not suburbs if Felixstowe, villages which grow naturally according to their own unique needs.

Trimley St Mary And Trimley St Martin As They Are Today

TWO churches standing together in one churchyard is the unusual, but best-known, symbol of the delightfully different but forever joined communities of Trimley St Mary and Trimley St Martin.

Separated from nearby Walton and the outskirts of Felixstowe by a bridge over the A14 Port of Felixstowe road, St Mary is the larger of the two Trimleys.

Although still a village, modern estate developments has seen its population grow beyond that of some small towns. Away from estates, though, St Mary retains its rural atmosphere with a traditional village street, pub, hall, farm and church, which is mentioned in the Domesday Book.

Trimley St Mary has access to the river Orwell via footpaths in Cordy's Lane. These allow views of operations on the northern edge of Felixstowe Port and also access to the 208-acre Trimley Marshes Nature Reserve, a man-made wetland habitat attracting increasing numbers of birds, both rare and common.

Trimley St Martin, once the larger of the two villages, is now the smaller. It is divided by the A14, with some homes and its primary school on the other side of the dual carriageway. It, too, has seen estate development in recent years and is now a thriving community with a shop and post office, a busy church, social club, bowls club, pub and its village hall, the Memorial Hall.

Population
3,840 (Approx)

Transport Links
Nearest train station is Felixstowe just two miles away.
Anglia Railways inquiry line 08457 484950
Travel check: 01473 693369
www.angliarailways.co.uk

For buses: Eastern Counties Buses, Rouen House, Rouen Road, Norwich, Norfolk, NR1 1RB. Tel: 08456 020121
Suffolk Traveline: 08457 583358

Leisure and Sports Centres
Nearest sports centres to Trimley St Mary are: Felixstowe Leisure Centre, Undercliff Road West, Felixstowe, Suffolk. Tel: 01394 670411
Brackenbury Sports centre, High Road East, Felixstowe, Suffolk. Tel: 01394 270278.

Hospitals
Felixstowe General Hospital, Constable Road, Felixstowe, Suffolk. Tel: 01394 282214
Bartlet Hospital, Bath Hill, Felixstowe, Suffolk. Tel: 01394 284292
Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust, Heath Road, Ipswich, Suffolk. Tel: 01473 712233

Local Authority
Suffolk Coastal District Council,
Council Offices, Melton Hill, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 1AU. Tel: 01394 383789
www.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk

Council Tax Bands
A…………….£566.89
B…………….£661.37
C…………….£755.85
D…………….£850.33
E……………..£1039.29
F…………..…£1228.25
G…………….£1417.22
H……………..£1700.66

Schools
Trimley St Mary County Primary School, High Road, Trimley St Mary, Felixstowe, Suffolk, IP11 0ST. Tel: 01394 284130

Trimley St Martin County Primary School, Kirton Rd, Trimley St Martin, Felixstowe, Suffolk IP11 0QL. Tel:(01394 448313

Distance to major towns and cities
Felixstowe 2 miles
Ipswich 10 miles
London 87 miles

This narrative has been taken from “The towns and major villages of Suffolk” section on the Evening Star web site.

Trimley Remembered - By Rosemary Gitsham
Trimley is not what you would consider a "pretty" village    Even its greatest admirer would admit that it has none of the chocolate box charm of some other Suffolk villages like Lavenham and Kersey.     But we who live here would not have it otherwise.   Until the great building boom of the 1970s (yes, we have already had one building boom recently) it was a quiet workaday place of farms, etc. A hundred years ago it was peopled by farm labourers, dairymaids, cowmen, mole & rat catchers, thatchers, millers, shepherds, horsemen, railwaymen and coprolite miners    The phosphatic nodules (which some people think is dinosaur dung) found in the local coprolite pits formed the basis of the fertiliser industry known all over the country as Fisons.   The total number of inhabitants of the two villages in The 1891 census was 1062 in 226 dwellings    Some of these lived in very cramped conditions - one family of 11 shared four rooms, and next door a couple and their 5 children shared three rooms    At the other end of the scale Mary Dains at Trimley House lived alone and had no fewer than 3 servants looking after her.

We have the distinction of being "twin" villages of Trimley St Martin and St Mary, with our twin churches sitting side by side on the boundary.   Our chief claim to fame is that Thomas Cavendish, the second Englishman to circumnavigate the world in 1586/1588 was born at Grimston Hall in Trimley St Martin. His first voyage brought fame and riches both to Cavendish and to England under Queen Elizabeth but the second ill fated voyage from which he never returned ended in death and disaster.

Even in the 1940s my own home village of Trimley St Martin consisted of just three roads - Grimston Lane (including Thorpe Lane), Mill Lane and Kirton Road.   All the rest has been added since      Everyone in the village was related to one another in some way.    One large field opposite the Hand in Hand pub supported two families (5 adults) who grew everything from cabbages, wheat, oats, & barley, and kept chickens and pigs; as a child I used to help with the harvest, putting the sheaves of com into stocks.   I also remember beating out the flames in a field of ripe corn which had been set on fire by a spark from a steam locomotive on the adjoining railway line.   This was a regular occurrence in the summer months. There being very little traffic down Thorpe Lane, four goats were tethered by the roadside, their location changed daily, which helped to keep the verges clear.

Then the postwar building boom began, firstly with the Council houses in Cavendish Road and then small developments in Mill Close and Red House Close until in the late 1970s Barratts the builders made a huge impact on the village environment with their St Martin's Green estate    New people moved in and promptly complained that there were no street lights and nothing to do. At the same time Broseley made an even larger impact in Trimley St Mary bringing increasing traffic and the diminution of village life. The spine road of this estate measures just under one mile in length with other roads off it. A few years earlier the McManus estate had been built between the High Road and the railway line in Trimley St Mary.

Trimley has made a great effort to welcome and integrate the newcomers and it has been gratifying to see a great many of them joining our "Save Trimley Against Growth" campaign.    We all feel that our twin villages have had their fair share of large new developments in the past 30 years, and it is now time for consolidation before the next wave of change comes about.    We have no problem with a small a amount of affordable housing for local young people or accommodation for the elderly if it is needed;   what we really object to is the wholesale destruction of the countryside in order to turn us into an urban sprawl and suburb of Felixstowe.