Nayland
| Nayland | |
|---|---|
 Alston Court and War Memorial, located in the centre of Nayland village |
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 Nayland
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| Nayland shown within Suffolk | |
| Population | 1,845 (2011) |
| OS grid reference | TL975342 |
| Civil parish | |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Colchester |
| Postcode district | CO6 |
| Dialling code | 01206 |
| Police | Suffolk |
| Fire | Suffolk |
| Ambulance | East of England |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
| UK Parliament | |
Nayland is a village in the Stour Valley on the Suffolk side of the border between Suffolk and Essex in England.
From an article by Rosemary Knox, Wissington
Nayland village and the adjoining rural hamlet of Wissington (these days usually called 'Wiston'), were originally two separate parishes; in 1883 they were united into one civil parish, Nayland-with-Wissington, although the two ecclesiastical parishes remain separate.
Nayland and Wiston lie on the northern bank of the River Stour, which divides Essex and Suffolk. Originally they were two different parishes with different histories. The name Nayland means an island, and the village developed on the higher ground amidst the lower river flood plain. It provided a good place for both a safe crossing of the river and an early manorial centre, probably a wooden castle. These advantages brought a market by 1227 and, by the late Middle Ages, it was a successful small town. The owners of the manor moved away and the little town was ruled by its cloth merchants, many of whom were very well off by the standards of the day. They were surpassed in wealth only by the merchants of Lavenham and Long Melford. They built fine Tudor houses and a fine church and the prosperity continued into the beginning of the seventeenth century. From then on the cloth trade began to move away, and although other trades like leather and soap manufacture developed, Nayland came to rely mainly on being a centre of commerce for the surrounding countryside. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the village drifted gently on, a relative backwater. The navigation on the river opened up but it did not bring a large increase in trade and the Navigation Company struggled to survive. The good result of this period of partial stagnation was that relative poverty prevented the beautiful old houses being knocked down to provide smart new homes and thus Nayland still possesses its Tudor and Stuart streets.
Nayland did have a small agricultural area but most of it lay out in the middle of the parish of Wiston and is nowadays considered to be part of Wiston. Although the official name for Wiston is Wissington, early documents suggest that Wiston is the original name, and it is certainly the one the local people always use. It had been a part of the manor of Nayland in 1066 but by 1087 had been given to a separate Norman family who lived across the river in Essex at Little Horkesley. From then on the history of the two places diverged. Wiston was administered from over the river and its links were with Little Horkesley rather than Nayland. The Lords of the Manor built the little Norman church, which still survives as a separate parish church, and they ran their estates in Wiston in conjunction with their land in Essex. The early wills and the taxation lists which still exist show only farmers in Wiston, and it remained purely an agricultural parish until the end of the nineteenth century. The manor was sold to more distant owners and the old manorial tenements became copyholds and then freehold farms.
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