Framlingham is well known for its castle and its many attractive buildings. The villages surrounding Framlingham have large village greens, a long history of brewing and witchcraft (or at least witch trials) which will all be explained in another article.

But now to smuggling and an extract from Smuggling in the British Isles: a History by Richard Platt For more detail visit his website www.smuggling.co.uk

The Roman road leading towards Stowmarket from the Suffolk coast was a convenient and well-used route for contraband heading inland. Its progress was only sporadically interrupted by the customs authorities, but nevertheless the passing carts did not go unnoticed. Earl Soham ( three miles west of Framlingham) was on this route was the home of William Goodwin, a surgeon. Goodwin lived at Street Farm for the second half of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth, and he meticulously recorded contraband passing through from Sizewell Bay to points farther west. In summer of 1785, he noted that, in less than a week, 20 carts had passed by carrying 2,500 gallons of spirits. In February of the same year, 5 carts carrying 600 gallons passed in the course of just one morning. On the 23rd of February, though, the smugglers were not so lucky, and they lost six carts loaded with spirits to the preventive services.
The enormous quantities that were being moved along the Roman road can be partly accounted by the state of Britain's other roads. Their condition was generally appalling, and at their worst during the winter. Until major road-building programmes began in the 1790s, the Roman roads that criss-crossed the country would have been the only reliable way of transporting heavy wagons. On other roads carts often foundered in the mud.
There are stories associated with other villages close to Earl Soham: at Monewden (four miles north west of Wickham Market) the sexton of the local church was in league with the smugglers, and in February 1790 the revenue services seized 9 tubs of spirits that he had hidden behind the ten commandments in the church. The parson, sexton and clerk at Rishangles to the north were also reputed to be involved in the trade, and repairs to St Margaret's church in 1858 lend some credence to this story: under the pulpit workmen found the remains of kegs and bottles. The interior of the pulpit was accessible only from outside the church, and the clerical gang had evidently used it as a secure storage place for their contraband. The church is now a private house.
At Letheringham (two miles north west of Wickham Market) Mr Hart was robbed and 'cruelly beaten' at on 1 Dec 1791 by one James Marr, a smuggler of Charfield. Marr was apprehended, but hanged himself in Ipswich New Gaol while awaiting trial.

Click here for an introduction to smuggling in Suffolk.