Field Book of 1566 

Four years after the manor was taken by the crown, a survey was made of 'Brandon otherwise Brandon Ferry' in the county of Suffolk. The preamble states that it was a 'view of the manor aforesaid of all the lands, tenements, meadowes, feeding grounds, pastures, etc there made in the month of October in the year of our lord one thousand five hundred and sixtie six.' A copy, probably made in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, survives. There are some gaps, but the copy is complete enough to identify ten open fields, each divided into several furlongs, each of which is, in turn, divided into strips. The ownership of most of these strips is given. From this record it is possible to reconstruct the open fields and show that they lay immediately to the west of Town Street. To the north and at the western end the fields were bounded by the flood plain of the river and the fen; warrens lay to the southwest. From the field boundary descriptions it is possible to identify a number of tenements in the Town Street.

John Basham ©2000
ref. East Suffolk Records Office