By Ines Keane
Crooked houses, and a reason for them. The National Trust says Lavenham’s wealth came from producing top-quality “blew” cloth for home and export markets, and that when the trade declined, the town could no longer maintain its buildings.
The wealth
The National Trust says that in the sixteenth century Lavenham was the fourteenth-wealthiest town in Britain and paid more tax than York and Lincoln. The travel magazine Meer says that in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries it was one of England’s richest settlements, and that captions in the article rank it among the twenty wealthiest settlements of the Middle Ages. The two rankings are different claims about different periods, and we show both. We have not seen the tax record behind either.
The cloth
Wikipedia, in its entry on the Guildhall, says Lavenham was a centre of the East Anglian woollen cloth trade, known for a woad-dyed broadcloth called Lavenham Blue. Meer says the town exported Lavenham Blue across Europe. The National Trust spells the colour “blew,” which is the spelling it uses on its page.
The decline, and a puzzle
The National Trust says that by 1525 the prosperity had ended because the cloth trade declined, that locals could no longer maintain the timber buildings and that by the seventeenth century mass demolition was threatened. Meer says the trade collapsed as fashions changed and competition grew, and that because the town lacked money to rebuild, much of its medieval fabric survived.
There is a tension between the sources. Wikipedia says the Guildhall was built around 1529, when the Guild of Corpus Christi was formed. The National Trust says prosperity ended by 1525. Meer says the Guildhall was built at the height of prosperity. We cannot reconcile 1525 and 1529 and do not try. Our reading is that the sources may be using “prosperity” to mean different things, but none says so.
The buildings
The National Trust says Lavenham has over 320 buildings of historic significance. Meer says more than 300 are listed. The counts are close and not the same measure: one counts historic significance, the other listing. Meer describes black-and-white timber-framed houses built by wealthy cloth merchants, leaning along narrow, uneven streets.
The Guildhall
Wikipedia says the Guildhall of Corpus Christi is timber-framed with jettied upper floors and a gabled porch, and calls the guild the most important of four set up by local merchant families. A local-information site says the guild was a religious one open to the public and operated for less than 20 years.
On later use, Wikipedia says it was a bridewell by 1689 and a workhouse from 1787, with prison cells and mortuary buildings added behind it in 1833. The local site says it also served as a wool store and as housing for the poor, and that the oldest end later became a chapel. Wikipedia says Sir Cuthbert Quilter bought it in 1887 and restoration finished around 1911. It says Sir William Quilter gave it to the people of Lavenham in 1946, that the National Trust acquired it in 1951 and that it was Grade I listed on 23 January 1958. Both sources say it served in the Second World War as a club for American troops and as a British Restaurant.
The church
Meer says the Church of St Peter and St Paul has a large tower that dominates the surrounding countryside. We have no second source for that.
What kind of sources these are
The National Trust page is a heritage owner’s page, and some of its wording is promotional. The local-information site uses marketing language, and we have used only its plain statements. Meer is a travel magazine, and Wikipedia is a collaboratively edited reference work. None is a historian’s account of the cloth trade.
What it means for a visit
Our reading is that Lavenham is a place where decline did the preserving. The sources say that the town could not afford to rebuild, so much of the older fabric stayed standing. Check what is open and what needs a ticket before you plan, since the sources do not say.
Where sources differ, we show each: the wealth ranking, the building counts and the dates around 1525. We list them in the check file.
Roam first. Shop later.