Horham

Coordinates: 52°18′18″N 1°14′56″E / 52.305°N 1.249°E / 52.305; 1.249

Horham (pronounced 'Hohrum') is a village in the county of Suffolk, in the East Anglia region of eastern England, United Kingdom. The village contains a church, St. Mary of Horham. Horham is on the B1117 road, approximately halfway between Eye and Stradbroke.

History

The village is old; some say it was a Viking settlement. There are some houses that are known to have been built in the 15th century. The old Dragon Inn - now known as Dragon House - is believed to date back to about 1525.

The composer Benjamin Britten used a cottage in Horham as a composing retreat from 1970 until his death in 1976.

Railways

The Mid-Suffolk Light Railway was built at the turn the last century to serve the villages, and agriculture, of Mid Suffolk. The terminus of the MSLR, or ‘Middy’ as it was affectionately called, was at Haughley Junction, where the station was enlarged in 1903 to cope with this additional role. The MSLR was a standard gauge railway built to take light traffic from Haughley to Mendlesham, Brockford, Kenton, Aspall, Horham and Laxfield. The railway opened predominantly in 1904 and was extended for freight only to Cratfield in 1906. The original idea was to push the line across to Southwold, providing a link from the Midlands through to the North Sea at Southwold. It was also planned to join with the East Suffolk Railway at Westerfield for Ipswich by building a railway through Debenham and Otley. A short section to Debenham was built but never opened.