Hartismere Hundred in Suffolk - in 1855.

HARTISMERE HUNDRED & UNION
Forms Hartismere Deanery, which was formerly in the Archdeaconry of Sudbury, but was added to the Archdeaconry of Suffolk, in 1837, and is still in the Diocese of Norwich. It is one of the Geldable Hundreds of the Western Division of Suffolk, and the fee of it was granted in tail male by Edward III. to Robert de Ufford, Earl of Suffolk. J. H. Heigham, Esq., of Hunston Hall, is now lord of this fee. It is a fertile district, averaging about ten miles in length and breadth, and bounded on the north by the river Waveney, which separates it from Norfolk: on the west, by Blackboum Hundred; on the south, by Stow, Bosmere-and-Claydon, and Thredling Hundreds; and on the east, by Hoxne Hundred. It is watered by several rivulets, running northward to the Waveney; and is crossed by the Eastern Union Railway, between Diss and Stowmarket. It is a well-wooded and fertile district, rising in picturesque undulations, but subsiding in a champaign tract near the Waveney. It has generally a strong loamy soil, and has a substratum of impervious blue clay, lying at the depth of from one to two feet. It includes the Borough of Eye, and the small towns of Botesdale and Mendlesham; and is divided into 32 parishes, of which the following is an enumeration, shewing their territorial extent, and their population in 1851. Their lands and buildings were assessed to the poor rates in 1850 at the annual value of £77,679. Bacton, Cotton, Finningham, Mendlesham, Westhorpe, and Wyverstone are in Stowmarket County Court District, and the other 26 parishes are in Eye County Court District.