Shelley, Suffolk
Shelley is a small village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. Located on the west bank of the River Brett around three miles south of Hadleigh, it is part of Babergh district. The population of the village was only minimal at the 2011 Census and is included in the civil parish of Higham.
Most of the parish is within the Dedham Vale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Other points of interest are Shelley Hall, a listed building with a protected moat, once owned by the Partridge family, and Snakes Wood, which is classified as Ancient Woodland and serves as a nature reserve.
Barker writes that there is an unusually long hedge in Shelley made up of coppiced lime trees. He writes that this follows the boundaries of remnants of nineteenth-century clearances of some of the ancient forest. Hedges of this sort are known as assart hedges.
Elizabeth Gosnold Tilney, sister of Jamestown colonist and explorer Bartholomew Gosnold, is buried at All Saints' Church, Shelley. An attempt has been made to use DNA from her remains to identify the body of her brother in Jamestown.
