Mildenhall

Mildenhall

Mildenhall, town (parish), Forest Heath district, administrative and historic county of Suffolk, eastern England, on the River Lark.

The town retains its hexagonal market, cross dating from the reign of Henry V and now scheduled as an ancient monument. The Church of St. Mary (13th to 15th century) has a tower 112 feet (34 metres) high. It is distinguished for the open-timber hammerbeam roof of the nave.

The so-called Mildenhall Treasure is a hoard of Roman silver tableware acquired by the British Museum in 1946, having apparently been discovered four years earlier in the plowing of a field at West Row, 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of Mildenhall, near remains of a 4th-century Roman building. The majority of the pieces, 34 in all, seem to be of 4th-century workmanship, and some are products of Mediterranean factories. Possibly the owners buried their family plate in the troubled days of the Anglo-Saxon invasions.

Mildenhall lies amid a farming area for which it acts as the main service centre. Pop. (2001) 9,906; (2011) 10,315.