Parham One-Place Study

Parham is a village situated in the East Anglian county of Suffolk, some ten miles from the east coast, about halfway between the market towns of Framlingham and Wickham Market.

In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson’s Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Parham like this:

‘PARHAM, a village and a parish in Plomesgate district, Suffolk. The village stands on the river Ore, adjacent to the Framlingham branch of the East Suffolk railway, 2¼ miles S S E of Framlingham; and has a station on the railway, and a post-office under Wickham-Market. The parish comprises 2,212 acres. Real property, £3,741. Pop. in 1851, 532; in 1861, 470. Houses, 101. The property is divided among a few. Old Parham Hall was the seat of the first Earl of Ufford; and passed to the Willoughbys and the Corrances. The living is a vicarage, united with the vicarage of Hackeston, in the diocese of Norwich.’

Parham has one of the few remaining Second World War Air Museums in the country that has connection with the USA. This is a special tourist attraction open on Sundays and Wednesdays, housing an exhibition of wartime artefacts in the redundant Control Tower. It commemorates the 390th Bomber Group of the American 8th Air Force. Also in the museum, is a room devoted to the Parham section of the British Resistance Organisation.

My LAST family ancestors had many links to the village including my great great grandfather William LAST who was a thatcher.