Милденхолл: История и современность английского городка

Mildenhall is a market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England. The town is near the A11 road, and is 37 mile (60 km) north west of Ipswich, the county town. The large Royal Air Force station, RAF Mildenhall, as well as RAF Lakenheath, are located north of the town. Both are used by the United States Air Force as the headquarters of its 100th Air Refueling Wing and 352nd Special Operations Group. Mildenhall is often seen as the start of The Fens on the south/east.

The area around Mildenhall has been settled by humans since at least the Bronze Age. Following the Roman Empire invasion of Britain, Mildenhall was the site of a Roman settlement, which at some point contained the Mildenhall Treasure. The name of the town was first recorded in 1050 as Mildenhale, believed to mean a nook of land belonging to a woman called "Milde" or a man called "Milda". In 1086, the Domesday Book recorded that the town was the property of the Abbot of St Edmunds and had a population of some 64 families.

With the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, ownership of the town was transferred to Edward North, 1st Baron North, whose son, Roger North, lived in Mildenhall for a time. Ownership of the Mildenhall estate remained with the North family for many decades. It was Henry North who, upon retirement, built the Manor house at Mildenhall. Sir Henry North was elected MP for Suffolk in 1685, but he died a bachelor and so ownership of the estate passed to Sir Thomas Hanmer. Hanmer was elected Speaker of the House of Commons in 1714 and spent little time in his estate. He also died without an heir, and ownership then passed to Thomas Bunbury, who also became MP for Suffolk. In 1810 Joseph Smedley was able to hire a building as a temporary theatre for £2.

The Bunbury family held the manor of Mildenhall until the estate was broken up in 1933. RAF Mildenhall was officially opened in 1934 and served as a base for RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War. In 1950, the US Air Force took over its operation.

The town has a bus station, which was completed in 2005. Regular bus services run to the neighbouring towns of Brandon, Bury St. Edmunds, Newmarket and Thetford. National Express operate daily coach services to Norwich, London (Victoria Coach Station), Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted Airports. Mildenhall railway station was the terminus of the Cambridge to Mildenhall railway until its closure in 1962.

Mildenhall has three schools: two primary schools, St. Mary's and Great Heath
and one secondary school, Mildenhall College Academy. The secondary school also contains a sixth form.

Mildenhall has a non League football club, Mildenhall Town F. C., who play at Recreation Way. It also has one of the East of England's leading cricket clubs, Mildenhall Cricket Club, playing at Wamil Way. In 2016 the 1st XI won the Two Counties Championship and was promoted to the East Anglian Premier Cricket League. Notable former players include England internationals Tymal Mills and Tom Westley and Essex Women's Lilly Reynolds. The Mildenhall Cycling Club is located next to the cricket ground, and has famous previous members such as Victoria Pendleton. There is a leisure centre on Bury Road which is about 5–10 minutes away from the town square. The River Lark runs through the town, and there is a 19 acre open space adjoining it, called the Jubilee Fields.

Mildenhall is perhaps most famous for the discovery in 1942 of the Mildenhall Treasure. Now at the British Museum, the treasure is a hoard of Roman silver objects buried in the 4th century. In 1946 the discovery was made public and the treasure acquired by the British Museum; Roald Dahl wrote an article about the find which was published first in the Saturday Evening Post, and later as "The Mildenhall Treasure" (a short story) in his short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. The Mildenhall Museum in the centre of the town contains displays of local history and wildlife, the history of the RAF base, and information on the Mildenhall Treasure. Entrance is free, opening times vary throughout the year. The region between Devil's Dyke and the line between Littleport and Shippea Hill shows a remarkable amount of archaeological findings of the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.