Great Finborough

Great Finborough
240px St Andrew's Church
Great Finborough  Great Finborough shown within Suffolk
Population	755 (2001)
OS grid reference	TM0157
Civil parish	Great Finborough
District	Mid Suffolk
Shire county	Suffolk
Region	East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	STOWMARKET
Postcode district	IP14
Dialling code	01449
Police	Suffolk
Fire	Suffolk
Ambulance	East of England
EU Parliament	East of England
UK Parliament	Bury St Edmunds
List of places UK England Suffolk

Great Finborough is a rural village in Suffolk, England about 3 miles (4.8 km) south west of Stowmarket and near one of the sources of the River Gipping. It has a population of 755. Route 461 [1]bus service operated by Beeston's connects Finborough with Sudbury, Bildeston and Stowmarket on Tuesday and Thursday only. The Bog Race is a key part of village life. It happens on Easter Monday every year. It is a battle between Haughley and Great Finborough. The race starts at the pub, The Chestnut Horse, where 15 or so men from Haughley and Great Finborough get considerably drunk and are taken to a nearby farm, Boyton Hall, where they have to race over the fields, about a mile, to get to the pub with the scroll. The first man at the pub with the scroll wins and is declared the winner over-all and then, that village has won for that year.

Great Finborough has a Primary School, Great Finborough CEVC Primary School, founded in 1873. The original buildings, to which two new classrooms were added in 2000. The school's catchment area includes Great Finborough and the neighbouring village of Buxhall; places are offered first to children from the two villages and then to others from beyond the catchment area up to the school's intake limit. The primary school is a feeder for Combs Middle School, to which pupils transfer at the age of nine.

The independent school Finborough School is also located in the village. About 250 pupils attend the school, which includes Nursery, Pre-Prep, Prep School, Senior School and Sixth Form.

Notable People

• William Skrene, a prominent judge of Irish birth, became Lord of the Manor of Great Finborough in about 1390.
• John Green Crosse was born at Boyton Hall, near Great Finborough, in 1790. He became a surgeon in Norwich.
• John Peel and his wife Sheila lived in a cottage nicknamed "Peel Acres" from the 1970s onwards from which many of his shows were broadcast in his later years. After his death in 2004, Peel was buried at St. Andrew's Church in the village.

Bibliography

• William White, History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Suffolk, and the Towns Near Its Borders (1844).

External links

• Great Finborough
• Stowmarket Sport (Grassroots coverage of sports, clubs and teams in a three-mile radius of Stowmarket)