The SIAH is pleased to announce the launch of a £500 annual essay prize in honour of our former President and distinguished academic Rev Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch. The prize will be awarded for the best essay, of not more than 10,000 words, based on the author’s original research on Suffolk history or archaeology. It is intended to encourage those who are relatively new to research and writing. The prize-winning essay will, if it meets editorial standards, be published in the Proceedings. The deadline for submission of the essay is 31 December 2026. Further details are available from the editor of the Proceedings, Dr Nick Amor, on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Please see this file for the rules.

The SIAH Field Group has a new website  at https://sites.google.com/view/suffolkarchaeologyfieldgroup/home .

Our archive has been enhanced with these four contributions: Melton Gaol records by Val Dudley, an extent of the rented lands of Leiston Abbey 1467 (the entries for Sizewell) by Mark Bailey, the Ipswich tallage (royal tax) of 1228 by Keith Briggs, and a very large Long Melford collection from Lyn Boothman.

Access via quick links on the right.

Wednesday 29^th October 2025 at 10.00 am on Zoom: Kevin Wooldridge, The interesting history of Halesworth cemetery and its people (1855-19).

Saturday 8^th November 2025 at 2.00 pm at Elmswell: Dr Shalona Klazow, Medieval pilgrimages to the chapel shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit.  [+council].

Saturday 22^nd November 2025 at 2.00 pm on Zoom: Ten-minute Talks.

Saturday 13^th December 2025 2.00 pm at Elmswell: Paul Drury, The medieval floor tiles of East Anglia.

Saturday 10^th January 2026 at 2.00 pm at Elmswell: Denise Parkinson, Trist’s Flood: an eyewitness account of the 1953 great sea flood in rural Suffolk [+council].

Wednesday 21^st January 2026 at 10.00 am on Zoom: Dr Francis Young, Troublesome Friars: The Franciscans in and out of Bury St Edmunds 1233-1538.

Saturday 14^th February 2026 at 2.00 pm at Elmswell: Dr Tristan Carter, Freston: Excavating Suffolk’s oldest sacred landscape.

Saturday 28^th February 2026 at 2.00 pm on Zoom: Dr Nick Amor, In the footsteps of David Dymond - researching and writing history.

Saturday 14^th March 2026 at 2.00 pm at Elmswell, Dr M J Walker, A Hard and Grievous Battle; the siege of Haughley castle and the battle of Fornham in 1173.

The Historic Towns Trust has published jointly with the SIAH a new historical map of Ipswich. More information and purchasing details are at https://www.historictownstrust.uk/post/ipswich-a-new-map-of-england-s-earliest-town .

The SIAH AGM 2025 papers can be downloaded here:

SIAH_2025-03-22__Accounts_signed_for_the_year_ended_31.12.2024.pdf

SIAH_Officers_Reports_AGM_2025.pdf

Two of our most popular publications, David Dymond's The business of the Suffolk parish (2018), and Rosemary Hoppitt's Deer parks of Suffolk (2020) are out of print, and we are pleased to be able to make available these pdf versions for free download:

Business of the Suffolk parish (39Mb)

Deer parks of Suffolk: removed while a copyright issue is investigated.

Volume 45, part 4 (2024) of the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History is now out. The contents are as follows, and full abstracts of the articles are available here.

Early Neolithic activity, a Beaker burial and a prehistoric funerary enclosure at Woolpit by Tom Woolhouse

Late Bronze Age settlement and salt production on the Stour estuary: excavations at Stutton Close, Stutton by Matt Brudenell, Lawrence Billington and Nicholas Cox

The Iron Age origins of Sudbury: did prehistoric defences influence the layout and development of Late Anglo-Saxon settlement seen at the Gainsborough’s House Museum excavations?, by Jezz Meredith

Medieval and post-medieval archaeology at Manor Farm, Bawdsey by Andrew A.S. Newton, Lindsay Lloyd-Smith and Liam Podbury

The Ipswich ancestors of Geoffrey Chaucer by Keith Briggs

Hiding in plain sight: the site of the medieval market butchery at Hadleigh by Sue Andrews

Wednesday 30^th October at 1000 Zoom: David Wollweber, The Halesworth Witches of 1645

Saturday 9^th November at 1400 Elmswell: Faye Minter, Rendlesham Revealed: Investigating an early East Anglian Royal Centre +council

Wednesday 27^th November at 1000 Zoom: Dr Anne Folan,The Poverty Line: the relationship between health and socio-economic status in Victorian and Edwardian Ipswich

Saturday 14^th December at 1400 Elmswell: Martin Harrison, ENDURING RADIANCE: medieval stained glass in Suffolk

Saturday 11^th January at 1400 Elmswell: Steven Graham, Excavations in Sudbury 2012-2023 +council

Saturday 25^th January at 1400 Zoom: Kathleen Fisher, The burn marks of Lavenham - a systematic recording approach

Saturday 8^th February at 1400 Elmswell: Sarah Doig, Elmswell on The Real Basil Brown: from Rickinghall to Sutton Hoo and back. (Change to previously announced program.)

Wednesday 19^th February at 1000 Zoom: Dr Nicholas Amor, Labour litigation in the court of common pleas in the fourteenth century

Saturday 8^th March at 1400 Elmswell: Dr David Boulton, Mapping the Scandinavian place-names of East Anglia: evidence for Viking migration and settlement (Change to previously announced program.) +council

An letter in the East Anglian Daily Times, 2024-07-15.  A reminder of past excursions and of our debt to the pioneer researchers who helped to advance our knowledge of our rich heritage of historic buildings and sites. Let us know (via the Hon Sec) if you also have interesting memories or images of past excursions!  'History of historical studies' like this is a sort of historiography, but perhaps not the in the usual sense - can anyone suggest a better term?