While today occupants of what is now known as Blythview tend to be holiday visitors enjoying the pool facilities, the beauty of the Blyth valley and the beach at Southwold there was a time when these buildings served a very different purpose and those that occupied them had very little satisfaction from their surroundings

England’s ancient Poor Laws brought violent reaction from some of our forefathers.

It’s probably fair to say Bulcamp is not at the top of every Suffolk explorer’s list. The community consists of a few scattered farms and cottages straddling the A12 Ipswich-to-Lowestoft road near the village of Blythburgh. The hidden hamlet does not declare itself and so the unwary traveller might pass through it without ever realising they were in the locality.

I have only seen one signpost pointing to the existence of Bulcamp - and the directions promptly ‘disappeared’ at the next road junction, less than half a mile away!

But Bulcamp meant only one thing to our east Suffolk forefathers in the nineteenth century - the workhouse. And inhabitants of the Blything Hundred certainly knew where that was. The fearsome regime conjured up in the minds of the poor by that dreaded place, made sure of that.

The name Bulcamp has provided scholars down the centuries with various interpretations, and perhaps not a few headaches pronunciation-wise. When I attempted my first stab at the little known hamlet, eyebrows turned skywards - followed by a rueful smile.

It sounds like one of those dreadful military training establishments but I was assured by locals it was pronounced Bulcam - or possibly Bulcum - the ‘p’ having been dropped.

In 1848 the Reverend Alfred Suckling said the name was derived from the Saxon Bald Kemp meaning ‘bold fighting’, a reference to the supposed encounter in 654AD between the Mercian pagan chief Penda and the Christian Saxons of East Anglia led by King Anna. The death of the king occurred at Bulcamp but not all historical commentators can agree on this location.

Later, in 1913, the Reverend Walter W. Skeat presented a different interpretation when he wrote that the word ‘camp’, meaning field, was borrowed from Latin.

He also provided various spellings including Bulchamp (from the French champ, meaning field), Bulecampe found in the Domesday Book of 1086, and Bolecamp found in Rotule Hundredorum - or one-hundred rolls, dated 1273.

More recently, Dr. Margaret Gelling said the Latin loan-word campus (field) is believed to be indicative of contact between Latin word users and early Anglo-Saxon, Germanic speaking settlers.

Eilert Ekwall’s ‘Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names’ also tells us about Bulcamp. In particular, the Old English word bula which means bull or bullock. It is not evidenced but it must have been in common use with place names such as Bolney, Boulmer and Bulwick However, there must have been a personal name Bula or even Bulla from which it is not always easy to distinguish ‘bula’.

Thus Bulcamp becomes ‘bull’s field’. Not in the least bit as daring or romantic as ‘bold fighting’ but probably nearer the truth.

A Suffolk Rebellion

Suffolk is perhaps not renowned for the riotous behaviour of its inhabitants. The first riot took place 243 years ago on August 5th, 1765. The second, 173 years ago on December 21st. 1835. They both occurred at the same place - Bulcamp.

The first rebellion unfolded at the ‘House of Industry’ but by the time of the second rebellion, in 1835, it had changed its title to the infamous ‘workhouse’. The ‘H’ shaped building, which opened in 1766, still stands and is situated on high ground just beyond Blyford parish church, close to the B1123 road which runs from Halesworth towards Blythburgh.

To understand why the riots took place, we must go back to the 16th century and to the administration of the poor which was to have a bearing on our way of life up until the early part of the last century.

Assistance to the poor in England was governed by the Poor Laws which, from the 16th century, made parishes responsible for providing relief to those genuinely unable to work. It was also designed to prevent starvation in years when the harvest failed.

‘An Acte for the Reliefe of the Poore’ followed in 1601 and marked the foundation of the Old Poor Laws, empowering parish overseers to raise money for poor relief from the inhabitants of the parish, according to their ability to pay. The poor-rates were dispensed to the needy of the parish, usually in the form of bread or money.

The lion’s share of the poor-rates were obviously paid by the wealthiest occupiers of the land. They were anxious to lessen their financial burden and one answer to their problem was to construct a large building known initially as a ‘House of Industry’.

Between 1756 and 1806, 437 East Anglian parishes merged into 15 groups called incorporated hundreds, of which nine were in Suffolk. Thus paupers from a wide area could be housed and usefully employed in one building, ensuring - in principle - mutual rewards for inmates and staff.

Although prosperity had increased by the eighteenth century in the area around Halesworth, problems still existed which were linked to poverty. In the Blything Hundred (a division originally meant to contain one-hundred families) which meant a large part of east Suffolk, all 47 parishes except Dunwich, were incorporated by an act of parliament, passed in 1764.

In the same year, on June 4th, the first meeting of the directors and guardians took place at The Angel Hotel, Halesworth, to organise the financing and building of the Bulcamp ‘House of Industry’. It was to be built on high ground just beyond Blyford parish church.

One of the directors, Sir. Thomas Gooch, laid the first brick on March 18th 1765 but completion of this building was hindered by a riotous mob and the destruction of the partially built edifice.

The London Magazine of August 5th reported: “On this day and the Monday evening, some thousand persons assembled near Saxmundham and Yoxford, and destroyed a building called the Industry House. The reason they gave for such riotous proceedings, is that the number of hands now employed in harvest work is not sufficient to do the business and that the poor should be allowed to work in the fields. The tumult was attended with bad consequences; a party of soldiers, sent for from Ipswich, were obliged to use force; one man was killed and six are taken and confined in Ipswich gaol.”

A below-average harvest that year coupled with high prices and unemployment had resulted in bitterness and resentment amongst the rural poor. They also felt threatened by the new building and the probable loss of traditional rights to relief within their homes and parishes. But whatever the reason for the riot, an extract from the minute-book of the Union House for September 2nd. 1765 records: “Mr. John Redgrave, Surveyor of the Works gave an estimate of the damage done, being £508 19s. 6d.”
It is worth noting that on the same date a mob assembled at Nacton (four miles south east of Ipswich) and threatened to pull down the House of Industry there but were prevented from doing so by a party of soldiers.

A further extract from the minute book on Sept. 30th records: “Resolved to have a guard stationed at the building; Mr. Fulcher (contractor) to let Rev. John Leman, J.P. know when the guardroom is erected, as Mr. Leman is requested to write the Commanding Officer at Halesworth for a detachment of a Corporal and 5 soldiers each night.” The directors were not taking any chances.

The climate of fear about the workhouse was eventually allayed and the construction of the building was completed. The ‘House of Industry’ opened on 13th October 1766 with 56 poor inmates. By the following April the numbers had increased to 352.

With the riot in mind and because of malicious reports that were received, the directors explained to potential inmates that the conditions inside the house would be humane. This would include separate bedrooms for married couples, care of the sick, children to be taught to read, and ‘good new feather beds with proper furniture for the poor’.

By the nineteenth century this relatively humane treatment of paupers at Bulcamp led the local gentry to call it the ‘Pauper’s Palace’.

However, by 1832 growing dissatisfaction with the whole system, particularly from the land and property-owning classes who bore the brunt of the poor-rate burden, led to the Whig government appointing a Royal Commission to review the system of administering poor relief.

In 1834 the Royal Commission reported to Parliament on changes affecting how paupers would be treated. They announced: “The great source of abuse was the outdoor relief afforded to the able-bodied, on their own account, or on that of their families, given either in kind or in money.”

The intention of The Poor Law Amendment Act was: “To raise the labouring classes from the idleness, improvidence and degradation into which the maladministered relief laws had sunk them.”

The objective was also to provide a refuge for the ailing and helpless and to deter the able-bodied from claiming poor-relief. It was to be administered uniformly to all paupers nationwide.

The result was a much more Spartan regime, and by July 1835 relief was to be given only in the workhouse. Children were separated from their parents. Husbands from their wives. And these sudden and great changes excited riotous proceedings in many parts of the country, not least at the House of Industry building, now renamed the Workhouse for Blything Union.

On Dec. 21st 1835 it was further noted in the Minute Book: “It having been reported to the Guardians present that a considerable body of men, armed with pickaxes, crowbars, and other implements of destruction were advancing in different directions to attack the Workhouse and the Committee there ...”

A mob of two-hundred approached from the direction of Halesworth to the workhouse gate adjoining the highway, and when persuasion failed to disperse them, they were read the RIOT ACT by the Rev. A. Collett.
The mob eventually withdrew, threatening to return with greater force. A courier was despatched to Ipswich for military assistance; eight soldiers arriving later to join others from Halesworth.

The Board of Guardians convened until they felt Bulcamp was secure.

On December 28th CLASSIFICATION in the workhouse began. A further entry in the Minute Book reads: “ ... the men were sent to their respective wards, the women to theirs, and the children to theirs.” Chilling words.

A period of calm was restored

However by March 1836 windows were frequently being broken and the able-bodied men who tried to see their wives were forcibly restrained by the Governor and locally stationed police officers.

It wasn’t until May 30th that the workhouse was reported in a tranquil state.

Bulcamp and many other workhouses across the country now saw the start of a harsher and more intolerant regime for inmates. It was evil carried out in the name of good.

In the following years Bulcamp became synonymous with hardship, squalor and despair. Features that combined to put the fear of God into any Blything inhabitant should their path, through unfortunate circumstances, lead to the workhouse door.

Although the Victorians were blamed for many harsh measures, it was they who slowly brought reforms to bear in the workhouse. Eventually, like many other such places, Bulcamp was converted into a hospital for the aged and infirm, although the high walls that surrounded it were not removed until after 1945; it was assumed inmates did not want to view the countryside. In later years it became the Red House, a home for the chronically ill.

Latterly known as Blythburgh and District Hospital, it closed in 1994.

Since 2000, the old hospital has been subject to a redevelopment project called Blythview. No doubt the new inhabitants will enjoy a lifestyle undreamt of by the past occupants of Bulcamp. And the fact that the three-storey building still survives is of great importance both historically and socially. A chance for owners to combine modern living with the enjoyment of a Georgian period setting. Staying at Blythview