Ampton


Ampton is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk District of Suffolk, England, about five miles north of Bury St Edmunds.
According to Eilert Ekwall the meaning of the village name is Amma's homestead. The Domesday Book records the population of Ampton in 1086 to be 23 households. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 63, including Little Livermere and Timworth also increasing to 171 at the 2011 Census.
The parish is grouped with Little Livermere and Timworth to form a parish council.
Ampton currently has 13 listed structures within it, 12 of them Grade II listed and SS Peter & Paul's church being Grade I listed.
At the church hangs four bells with the heaviest weighing 8-1 cwt and dating from 1405
Most of the village was designated as a conservation area on 5 March 1987.
The village's racecourse hosts the South Suffolk Show, an annual one day agricultural show which was first organised in 1888.
Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy FRS, the scientist who achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, was born in the village. He also coined the phrase ‘Weather Forecast’ when he founded the predecessor to the Meteorological Office.

Historical Writings

In 1870–72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described the village as:
In 1887, John Bartholomew also wrote an entry on Amptonin the Gazetteer of the British Isles with a much shorter description:

Notable residents