Westerfield
village in Suffolk, England, UK
Westerfield is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England. It lies about two miles north of the centre of Ipswich and is served by Westerfield railway station on the Ipswich–Lowestoft East Suffolk Line.
Amenities
Westerfield has two public houses, The Swan in northern Westerfield and The Westerfield Railway in the south. Both serve meals and contribute much to local social activity.
Central Westerfield has a village green adjacent to the medieval parish Church of St Mary Magdalene, where the East Anglian cleric and Hebrew scholar Cyprian Thomas Rust (1808–1895) is among those buried. It has fine stained glass windows, of which St Mary of Magdala was designed by William Morris.
Population
The population of Westerfield with Culpho was estimated at 486 in 2019 and measured at 442 in the 2011 Census.
History
Westerfield was in the Bosmere and Claydon hundred, in 1894 it became part of Woodbridge Rural District which became part of the administrative county of East Suffolk in 1889. On 31 December 1894 the parish of "Westerfield in Ipswich" was formed from the part of the parish in the County borough of Ipswich, on 1 April 1952 5 acres was transferred to Rushmere St Andrew parish. In 1974 it became part of Suffolk Coastal non-metropolitan district in the non-metropolitan county of Suffolk.
“Westerfield” enters the record as village in Suffolk, England, UK. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Westerfield, village and Suffolk can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Westerfield” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Westerfield, village and Suffolk provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2232624. Authority coordinates are 52.083, 1.172. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1808, 1895, 2019 and 2011.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Westerfield”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Westerfield primary sources, Westerfield archive and Westerfield research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Westerfield”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Westerfield” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.