ODD BITS of LAND in FELTWELL

The piece of land opposite the Post Office with its smithy, house and gardens, was known formerly as Mud Island or, as some called it, Mud Ireland; it was not enclosed and had three cottages on it with their backs to the Churchyard; it had also a stream and a pond which were well patronised by the children of the parish. From all accounts Mud Island a hundred years ago was the village playground.

At one time the Common Bank was navigable up to the garden of the house in Short-Beck now occupied by Mr. Theodore Barker; lighters and boats from Sam's cut, better known as the Twenty Foot, brought sedge, peat and other things from the Fens and landed them there.

Plowman's Drove on the Poppylot Road takes its name from William Plowman who lived and died there in 1878; he lived in the house in which, thirty years later, Susan Wilson was murdered.

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