Clare is a market town and civil parish on the north bank of the River Stour in the West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England. Clare is in southwest Suffolk, from Bury St Edmunds and from Sudbury. Clare won Village of the Year in 2010 and Anglia in Bloom award for Best Large Village 2011 for its floral displays in 2011. In March 2015, The Sunday Times and ZooplaSunday Times, supplement: Best Places to Live: Rural, 1 March 2015 placed Clare amongst the top 50 UK rural locations, having "period properties and rich history without the chocolate-box perfection – and the coach trips". In 2011 it had a population of 2,028.
Clare and its vicinity has evidence of human habitation throughout prehistory, through the Norman Conquest, to the present day. Through the Anglo-Norman family de Clare, who took the name of this village, the name spread to other places and institutions such as County Clare in Ireland and Clare College, Cambridge.
The town hosts Stour Valley Community School, one of the first free schools established by the government, opened in September 2011.
Geology This area of the country was formed during the Tertiary period, containing some of the youngest rock in the British Isles. Like the vast majority of Suffolk, the surface 'rock' is the very fertile boulder clay or clay loam, lying on top of layers of chalk. The landscape surrounding the Stour Valley is the result of the joint effects of past glaciation and the agricultural alteration of the land. Originally the area was under the sea; the shells of the sea creatures dropped to bed of the ocean and formed into chalk about 140 million years ago. Another mineral, silica, filled the sponges and other similar animals in the sea. As this was left behind it formed nodules of hard flint.
A ridge of Cretaceous chalk left by the ancient sea juts into Suffolk from Cambridgeshire. This ridge is never more than 140 metres above sea level but it makes what is called High Suffolk. This chalk layer forms the so-called solid rock layer. This chalk was originally quarried where it came to the surface, and was either burned to produce agricultural lime or was mixed with sand, quarried locally, for mortar used in building (hence the presence of cream bricks ('Suffolk whites') for houses in the area). Chalk in the water makes it 'hard' (classified as 'very hard; 511 mg/L as calcium carbonate) according to Anglian Water's water quality.
During the Ice Age, the sea level was some 200 metres lower than it is today. Melt water carried debris and flowed beneath the glacier under high pressure, to produce tunnel valleys, deeply incised water routes. At Clare it is as far as 110 metres below our present sea level. The valley was subsequently filled with boulder clay and gravel. The ice sheet, which produced the chalky boulder clay, rolled upon a bed of glacial sand and gravel, and formed the flattened character of the area today.Geology of Great Bradley.
The main river running through the country park is not the Stour. This is a mill stream called the 'new cut', established to operate a mill belonging to the priory, in use in the 13th century. It is joined at the eastern end of the country park by the Chilton stream. This itself is fed by the Hawedych, and by another stream coming down from Poslingford. The smaller Stour now runs south of the country park, meandering around the priory and meadows.
Governance In 1894 Clare became part of Clare Rural District which became part of the administrative county of West Suffolk in 1889. In 1974 Clare became part of St Edmundsbury district in the non-metropolitan county of Suffolk. In 2019 Clare became part of West Suffolk district.
History Prehistory
Paleolithic implements were discovered within the Priory grounds.National Monuments Record – PastScape: Monument No 379281 A Mesolithic quartzite pebble macehead was found in the same location.National Monuments Record – PastScape: Monument No 868753 A Neolithic stone axe was retrieved from the River Stour; a polished flint axe in a gravel pit to the eastNational Monuments Record – PastScape: Monument No 379376 and a flint head in a meadow just off the Ashen Road.National Monuments Record – PastScape: Monument No 379377 A Neolithic flint arrowhead was found in a garden on Bridewell Street. A Neolithic long mortuary enclosure and three Bronze Age barrows were located across the river towards Ashen.National Monuments Record – Pastscape: Monument No 379384 – this is a scheduled monument Evidence of a barrow together with 200 worked flints were found near Chilton Street.National Monuments Record – PastScape: Monument No 379243 A Bronze Age socketed gouge was unearthed from plough soil on the Common.National Monuments Record – PastScape: Monument No 379282 There are some 24 other pre-Iron Age structures in the parishes around Clare which may be located via Google Maps.
An Iron Age pot was found embedded in the river bank, half a mile east of Clare. Together with an iron spearhead, they are held in The Ancient House. Iron Age coins have also been found,The Portable Antiquities site: CCI-962835 and CCI-900854 one from the Belgic Trinovantes tribe. In 2009 during a recent rebuilding programme at Clare Community Primary School, postholes of a late Bronze/Early Iron Age structure were located, with an associated ring ditch.Suffolk Institute of Archaeology & History, Vol XLII Part 2 This supports the view that Clare Camp (OS TL768458, at the north end of the town, just behind Bridewell Street) with its double ditches, one of the most impressive of its kind in Suffolk, is from that period; with an area of 2.9 hectares, it is second only to Burgh Castle. It is now entered into the Atlas of Hillforts. The north side is most complete, with an inner rampart 9 ft high and counterscarps 12 and 14 ft high.Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Suffolk, 1974, Penguin 2nd ed. p. 169, In 1993 a field survey and magnetometric scan revealed the possibility of entrances on the east and south sides.Suffolk Institute of Archaeology & History, Vol XXXVIII, p. 312 Clare was on the outer borders of the Trinovantes territory, just south of the Iceni. The camp probably marks the first permanent settlement in the area.
Roman A Roman boundary ditch and posthole has been found just off Nethergate Street; a strap fitting,The Portable Antiquities Site: ESS-OCF537 coins,National Monuments Record – PastScape: Monument No 379242 and Monument No 379275 sepulchral urnsNational Monuments Record – PastScape Monument No 379261 and a bronze figurine of Mercury or a dancing boyNational Monuments Record – PastScape: Monument No 379269 have been unearthed in various locations. Some Roman brick seems to have ended up in the Parish Church.
There were substantial settlements to the west at Wixoe and to the east at Long Melford. Archaeological digs and magnetic survey at Wixoe, as part of the Abberton pipeline installation, revealed a small town occupied from 100-400AD.Oxford Archaeology Report No 1283: Excavations at Wixoe Roman Town (Wix 022), September 2012 update The Via Devana from Chester to Colchester, a military road, passed through this town. Another road led east from Wixoe, on the north side of the Stour, passing through Long Melford, before heading north-east to Baylham and possibly to Dunwich on the coast; this route is associated with a prehistoric road. No clear trace of this road can now be seen between Wixoe and Cavendish: the agger in the form of terrace has either been eroded by ploughing or incorporated into field boundaries, as is typical in East Anglia.Ivan Donald Margary, Roman Roads in Britain, John Baker 1973, 3rd ed. p. 265
Norman The name first appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as 'Clara'. It possibly derives from the "clear" nature of the Chilton Stream as it flows through the town, but from a Latin word rather than a Celtic one as was previously thought.Keith Briggs, 'Clare, Clere, and Clères', Journal of the English Place-Name Society, 41, 7–25 (2009) In the Domesday Book, it is described as "Always a market. Now 43 burgesses". Hatton describes this as an "astonishingly high number, because at the time very few Suffolk towns had any burgesses, let alone 43".Hatton op. cit. I p. 11 It lists of meadow, woodland for 12 swine, a mill, 5 arpents of vineyard (an arpent was 4–6 acres) and 400 sheep. The manor included Stoke-by-Clare and the hamlet of Chilton Street, totalling 128 households. Improbably it has been suggested that the word claret is derived from Clare and its extensive vineyards. There is a Claret Hall towards Ashen, but that could simply mean 'Little Clare'.
The feudal lords of Clare The Domesday Book records that the lands around Clare belonged to a Saxon thane, Aluric (or Aelfric), son of Wisgar (or Withgar) and that he gave them to St John, probably creating in Clare a collegiate church,The Archaeological journal, Volume V p. 230 under Edward the Confessor. William the Conqueror re-granted the land to one of his closest supporters in the Norman Conquest of 1066, Richard fitz Gilbert of Bienfaite, Count of Brionne, the son of one of his cousins, along with 170 other manors, 95 of them in Suffolk. Apart from being related to William, Richard's relationship with the king was further embedded as his father-in-law, Walter Giffard, Lord of Longueville was one of the 15 or so known companions of William at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. This huge feudal barony became known as the Honour of Clare and Richard became known as "Richard de Clare" (or "of Clare") after he made the castle of Clare the administrative centre, or Caput baroniae, of the honour. He also held a large manor in Tonbridge, Kent where he built a motte and bailey castle of a very similar size to Clare Castle. Clare Castle is first recorded in 1090.National Monuments Record – PasRtScape: Monument No 379255
After 1066, William was not only King of England but also Duke of Normandy and spent time in both places. When he was away from England, Richard served as joint Chief Justiciar in William's absence, and played a major part in suppressing the revolt of 1075.
His son Gilbert de Clare gave the church in the castle to the Benedictine Bec Abbey in Normandy. Gilbert and his brother were present with Prince Henry when King William II was shot dead by an arrow fired by Walter Tyrell, Gilbert's steward. Tradition is strong that the Clares had staged an assassination. King Henry I was crowned three days later.
In 1124 Gilbert's son Richard de Clare removed the Benedictines to a new foundation in Stoke-by-Clare, which later became a college of priests and was the site of today's Stoke College.
In 1140 Richard's son Gilbert de Clare was given the title of Earl of Hertford by King Stephen. He joined the revolt against the king but later returned to support him.
Richard de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford and his son Gilbert were two of the 25 barons appointed as guardians to Magna Carta of 1215. Richard married the heiress of the Earl of Gloucester, whose sister had been the first wife of King John.
Gilbert de Clare, 4th Earl of Hertford inherited the title and vast estates of the Earl of Gloucester. It was his son, Richard who brought the Augustinian Friars to Clare to found the mother house in England in 1248.