27 [left side] was the Post Office until after 1939. It has a carriage wheel guard stone at the corner of the house. A very narrow door at the side opens to a recess used for storage of shutters to the front bay windows. The hinge pins are still on the window frames. Also inside is a heavy duty cast iron door in the side of a chimney.

29 was originally a bakery and shop. In the 1940s, the shop included a café. The bake house is seen at the rear of the entrance yard.

31 – Swan House – was originally the Swan Inn but Adnams discontinued the licence in the 1920s, for a reason with an unusual and speculative story.

House 33 formerly had an overhead shoemaker´s workshop joined from the house to Swan House, with access to the rear underneath. At one time divided into two with the front part used as a tailor´s shop and later a fish and chip shop. There is a dummy window associated with the ancient window tax.

35. First called the Red Lion Hotel then the White Lion Hotel. There was a petrol pump in the yard [to the left], which was used extensively by the Army during World War 2. Also in the front yard a brick office stood near the roadside because Arthur Hipperson, the landlord, was the road surveyor for the Blyth Rural District Council, among other things and this was his work place. There was a bowling green in the rear garden until the late 1930s.

Between the Lion and the Angel was an access track to the former Vine Cottage located on the edge of the marsh and very damp as a consequence. Demolished in about 1971. The track was also access to Angel Cottage, which was once a separated residence at the side of, but within, the Angel Hotel.

The Angel Inn, one of the oldest buildings in the village. Used as a Court House for the Assizes and also for property auctions. A building in the yard housed the wartime fire engine from 1940–45.

Between the gates and Church Street, where the present lay–by is, stood a row of eleven houses and shops [to the left] , which had a variety of uses over the years. Mixed among private residents were butchers, shoemakers, hardware store, chimney sweep, garage with roadside petrol pump (later converted to an Army Cadet Centre), cycle repair shop, grocer, garage for the doctor´s car (later converted to wartime WVS canteen), harness maker and tailor.

The one remaining building is number 8 [shown], which could not have a demolition order applied because the District Council could not find out who owned it. It was a small grocery shop. These properties had no yards or gardens and the Vicar once complained in the Parish Magazine about rubbish being thrown into the churchyard at the rear.

When the row was demolished, all the large Elm trees on both the Church Street and High Street sides of the churchyard were removed. A new brick wall was erected further back from the road than the former wall.

Inside the Church, Lady Penelope´s parents, the 4th Earl and Countess, are interred in front of the Belfry door. Round the corner are wooden crosses to her grandparents. However, they are not interred, but rest in the Rous family vault under the tower. At this end of the Church is the Coach House, where Lord Stradbroke´s coach and horses were kept during his attendance.

In 1893 at a cost of £120 this impressive clock (made by a steam clock company) was installed. You can read a detailed history of Wangford Church HERE.

46 – 83, plus all of Old Priory Gardens, was Liza´s Meadow with Liza´s Barn on the Uggeshall boundary and Liza´s Cottages beside the old A12 trunk road. In one of these thatched cottages lived Eliza Ife who was a female farm labourer, built like a man. Everything in that area was named after her.

The village milestone was replaced almost in its same spot in front of these modern houses built by local builders from Wrentham, Ellis Homes, in 1983.

Number 16, the present Post Office, was built by the Henham Estate in 1879 and Listed as the Post Office from then. In 1933 its telephone number was Wangford 7, the highest number in the village. Four years later it was the same, but the District Nurse was Wangford 32. An example of progress at electric speed. A tennis court between the shop and the playing field was used to accommodate the building of a house in recent years.

Now walk to the junction of the High Street and Norfolk Road...