Stanningfield
Stanningfield is a small village in Suffolk, England. It is part of the civil parish of Bradfield Combust with Stanningfield in the West Suffolk district. The village sits near the A134, about 5 miles southeast of Bury St Edmunds, 8 km northwest of Lavenham, and 16 km north of Sudbury. In 1961, the parish had 211 residents. On 1 April 1988, the parish merged with Bradfield Combust to form Bradfield Combust with Stanningfield.
The name Stanningfield comes from old English words meaning “stony field.” The area has a long history, with evidence of Roman occupation on a local farm and references in Anglo-Saxon and Norman times, including the Domesday Book.
The village church, St Nicholas, dates back to at least the Norman period. Its most notable feature is a 14th-century Decorated chancel donated by the Rookwood family. A 15th-century Doom painting above the chancel arch was restored in 1995. The tower was shortened in the late 19th century and given a pyramid roof. The church is now part of the Benefice of St Edmund Way.
The River Lark runs nearby, and the village greens, especially Hoggard’s Green, are central to local life. The Red House inn, built in 1865, has long been a local landmark and was bought by Greene King in 1877. A community shop and a village hall serve residents, along with several old farms. Coldham Hall, on the Lawshall side, harks back to Tudor times and is connected with local history; Ambrose Rookwood of Coldham Hall was involved in the Gunpowder Plot. The novelist Elizabeth Inchbald was born in Stanningfield in 1773 to a Catholic farming family.
Stanningfield has a Catholic parish history in a predominantly Protestant area. The area was once served by a nearby railway station, which closed to passengers in 1961. Today, there is an hourly daytime bus service to Bury St Edmunds and Sudbury, with some buses connecting to Cambridge, Ipswich, and London.
The wider Bradfield Combust with Stanningfield parish grew from 503 people in 2001 to 578 in 2011, and about 587 in 2019.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 21:02 (CET).