Newmarket, Suffolk

Coordinates: 52°14′45″N 0°24′38″E / 52.2459°N 0.4105°E / 52.2459; 0.4105
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"Newmarket Town Council" redirects here. For the town council of Newmarket, Ontario, see Newmarket, Ontario § Government.

Newmarket
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townNEWMARKET
Postcode districtCB8
Dialling code01638
PoliceSuffolk
FireSuffolk
AmbulanceEast of England
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Suffolk
52°14′45″N 0°24′38″E / 52.2459°N 0.4105°E / 52.2459; 0.4105

Newmarket is a

James I, who built a palace there, and was also a base for Charles I, Charles II, and most monarchs since. Elizabeth II
visited the town often to see her horses in training.

Newmarket has over fifty horse training stables, two large racetracks,

Palace House, the National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art, the National Horseracing Museum, Tattersalls
racehorse auctioneers, and two of the world's foremost equine hospitals for horse health, are in the town, which is surrounded by over sixty horse breeding studs. On account of its leading position in the multibillion-pound horse racing and breeding industry, it is also a major export centre.

History

Newmarket's name was first recorded in Latin as novo mercato in 1219 (according to

Feet of Fines CP25/1/23/9). The Novum Forum c.1200 recorded in many place-name dictionaries such as that by Mills,[6] is an error; this was actually the surname de novo foro of a man from Yorkshire who had no connection to Newmarket.[7]
In 1223, Richard de Argentein was granted licence to hold an annual fair in Newmarket (from The National Archives, Henry III Fine Roll C60/18).

Italianate in style.[9]

In 1642,

Royalist throughout the war. In early June 1647, Charles was captured at Holdenby House in Northamptonshire and brought to Newmarket as a prisoner. He was placed under house arrest in the palace while the whole of Cromwell's New Model Army kept guard over the town. A survey in 1649 showed that the palace was in disrepair. The following year, the palace was sold to John Okey (one of the regicides), who demolished most of the buildings.[10]

Between 1666 and 1685, Charles II often visited Newmarket. In 1668, he commissioned William Samwell to build a new palace on the High Street (on the site of the present United Reformed Church). However, in 1670, John Evelyn said that the palace was "meane enough, and hardly capable for a hunting house, let alone a royal palace!" In October 1677 and October 1695, William of Orange visited Newmarket.

At the start of the 19th century, the palace was largely torn down, but a part survives and is now named

Palace House.[10] During the 1800s, Newmarket south of the High Street spread into the parishes of Woodditton and Cheveley in Cambridgeshire. In 1894, the county border was moved to accommodate this, and has been further altered since.[11]

On 15 December 1977, an

F111-F jet fighter crashed at Exning near Newmarket, owing to hydraulic failure.[12]

Aired on the 12th February 2012, the British television series

excavated on the site
of Charles II's palace at Newmarket, and found foundations of racehorse stables.

Geography and governance

A view of the Jockey Club Rooms at Newmarket Racecourse

The area of Suffolk containing Newmarket is nearly an

West Suffolk District Council, and Suffolk County Council
.

The town lies in the Parliamentary constituency of West Suffolk, which since 2010 has been represented by Conservative MP Matt Hancock.[13]

Administrative history

Newmarket
Urban District (1894–1974)
Newmarket Escutcheon
Newmarket Escutcheon
Coat of arms
Population
 • 18916,213[14]
 • 197112,360[15]
History
 • Created7 August 1851 (Local Board)
31 December 1894 (Urban District)
 • Abolished31 March 1974
 • Succeeded byForest Heath
 • HQNewmarket
Contained within
 • Quarter Sessions (until 1889)
County Council (after 1889)		Suffolk and Cambridgeshire (until 1889)
West Suffolk (after 1889)

Historically the town was split between parishes and counties, with one parish - St Mary - in Suffolk, and the other - All Saints - in Cambridgeshire. The boundary between the two parishes followed the High Street through the middle of the town, with St Mary's parish and Suffolk to the north, and All Saints' parish and Cambridgeshire to the south. In 1851 a local board of health was established to govern the town, with its territory covering the two Newmarket parishes and parts of the neighbouring parishes of Exning (Suffolk) and Woodditton (Cambridgeshire).[16][17]

The

urban sanitary districts such as Newmarket Local Board should not straddle county boundaries. As such, the whole local board district was brought within West Suffolk on 1 April 1889. The Local Government Act 1894 established elected parish and district councils, with Newmarket Local Board becoming Newmarket Urban District Council on 31 December 1894. Newmarket Urban District Council held its first meeting on 31 December 1894 at the Town Hall at 29 High Street, a converted theatre which had previously been used by the old local board for meetings.[18][19] The first chairman of the urban district council was Joseph Rogers, who had been the last chairman of the local board.[20][21] On 1 October 1895 the urban district was enlarged by absorbing the rest of Exning parish and additional areas from Woodditton parish (the latter being added to the civil parish of Newmarket All Saints). Thereafter Newmarket Urban District covered three civil parishes: Newmarket St Mary, Newmarket All Saints, and Exning. These were urban parishes and so did not have parish councils of their own, but were directly administered by Newmarket Urban District Council.[22]

The urban district council was based at the Town Hall at 29 High Street until 1922, when it moved to Godolphin House at 2 The Avenue, and sold the Town Hall to be converted into commercial premises.[23] By 1937 the council had moved its main offices to Stratford House at 29 Old Station Road, but continued to use Godolphin House for some departments.[24][25] Around 1948 the council acquired Severals House at 3 Bury Road, which then served as its offices and meeting place until the council's abolition in 1974.[26] Newmarket Urban District Council was granted a coat of arms on 15 November 1951.[27]

The Local Government Commission for England suggested in the 1960s that the border around Newmarket could be altered in West Suffolk's favour. Conversely, the 1972 Local Government Bill, as originally proposed, would have transferred the town (and Haverhill) to Cambridgeshire. Newmarket Urban District Council supported the move to Cambridgeshire, but ultimately the government decided to withdraw this proposal and keep the existing boundary, despite lobbying from the Urban District Council.[28]

Newmarket Urban District was abolished under the Local Government Act 1972, merging with neighbouring Mildenhall Rural District to become Forest Heath District on 1 April 1974.[29] No successor parish was created for the former urban district, and so it became an unparished area, remaining unparished until 1999 when the area was split between two parishes called Newmarket and Exning, with the parish council for Newmarket adopting the name Newmarket Town Council.[30][31] Forest Heath District Council had its main offices at Mildenhall. Forest Heath merged with neighbouring St Edmundsbury in 2019 to become West Suffolk, administered from Bury St Edmunds.

Connections to horse racing and training

A horse race at Newmarket Racecourse
A grandstand at The Rowley Mile

Racing at Newmarket has been dated as far back as 1174, making it the earliest known racing venue of post-classical times.[

King James I (reigned 1603–1625) greatly increased the popularity of horse racing there, and King Charles I followed this by inaugurating the first cup race in 1634. The Jockey Club
's clubhouse is in Newmarket, though its administration is based in London.

Stables and training industry

Horses galloping on the Long Hill training grounds

Around 3,000 race horses are stabled in and around Newmarket. By comparison, the human population is of the order of 15,000 and it is estimated that one in three jobs are connected to horseracing in one way or another.

heath is chalk downland and has special birds and animals only suited to this terrain. It is also a very historical area with the remains of 6th century living.[33] This hill is part of the chalk formation the Newmarket Ridge
. The town has 50 miles (80 km) of turf gallops and over 14 miles (23 km) of artificial track.

Most of the Newmarket-based racing stables are situated in the centre of the town, where they can easily access the gallops. The town has special horse routes so the horses can reach the gallops safely from the many training establishments occupied by top trainers. Many of the world's most successful trainers are based in Newmarket,

thoroughbred breeding, studs occupying large areas in every direction. Around 70 licensed trainers and more than 60 stud farms operate in and around Newmarket.[34]

Newmarket has three major public horse exercise grounds: Warren Hill (including the Long Hill exercise grounds), Racecourse Side (situated between and alongside Newmarket Racecourses's Rowley Mile and July Courses), and the Limekilns (include the Al Bahatri all-weather grounds). Godolphin also operate two large private horse exercise grounds near their Godolphin Stables and Moulton Paddocks stables.

Horse racing

The Rowley Mile Racecourse

The town has two race courses situated on Newmarket Heath,

1,000 Guineas, two of the world's most prestigious races, run in the first weekend of May every year. The value of the winners of these races are often immediately increases by millions of pounds. It is also the home of Future Champions Day, run the weekend before Champions Day at Ascot, which includes the very important Dewhurst Stakes. The July Course is the home of the July Cup, the Falmouth Stakes and a number of other very important races. The two courses are separated by the Devil's Dyke. This large earthwork starts in neighbouring Woodditton (sometimes spelt as Wood Ditton) and ends in Reach
, a distance of over seven miles (eleven kilometres).

Horse breeding

The National Stud, Newmarket, UK
The National Stud

Newmarket is the UK centre for the multibillion-pound racehorse breeding industry, and a key global centre of the business. Thoroughbred breeding lines are a core part of success in global horse racing, and key stallions are controlled by major global breeding operations, which operate studs around the town.

thoroughbred horses
. Other parts of the town are also surrounded by some of the world's largest and most successful horse breeding studs.

Horse health and welfare

A view of the Jockey Club Rooms

The town is home to two of the most advanced equine hospitals in the world, the Newmarket Equine Hospital[35] and Rossdales.[36]

Museums of horse racing

Part of Palace House in Newmarket, Suffolk, UK

Newmarket is home to Britain's National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art at

Palace House, the National Horseracing Museum, the Sporting Art Trust and a base of Retraining of Racehorses.[37]

Food and drink

Newmarket sausages

The town is home to the

PGI Protected Newmarket sausage
. Produced since the 1880s, three local butchers in the town are entitled to produce these unique flavoured sausages.

The sausages are given as a prize for the

Newmarket racecourse
.

Culture and community

Newmarket Clock Tower in July 2019
A statue of the Queen in Newmarket, Suffolk

Newmarket's key role in sport for many centuries has made it a centre for many of Britain's finest sporting painters. The development of painting on

Sir Alfred Munnings
's most famous paintings.

The Save Historic Newmarket group, an organisation dedicated to maintaining the town's unique heritage as the world headquarters of racing, has become increasingly vocal in recent years.[39] The group, composed of local residents, supports sustainable development in the town and aims to make Newmarket a more attractive destination for visitors.

Transport

London & North Eastern Railway). Newmarket's first railway was a line built by the Newmarket and Chesterford Railway and opened in 1848 (known as the "Newmarket Railway"). It branched off the West Anglia Main Line at Great Chesterford and ran about 15 miles (25 kilometres) north-eastwards. There was an attractive terminus in Newmarket, with intermediate stations at Bourne Bridge, Balsham Road and Six Mile Bottom
.

Three years later the first nine miles (fourteen kilometres) or so of this line, the stretch from Great Chesterford to Six Mile Bottom, was superseded by a more viable section linking Six Mile Bottom directly with Cambridge, and so the Great Chesterford – Six Mile Bottom section closed in 1851, one of the earliest closures in British railway history (the former Bourne Bridge station is believed to have been partly incorporated into a public house just across the road from a station opened later on another line - Pampisford, on the now-closed Cambridge - Haverhill - Sudbury route). With the development of other rail lines the Newmarket terminus was replaced by the present through station in 1902; it was used as a goods station until 1967 and demolished in 1980.[40]

A short distance to the north east is the 1,100-yard Warren Hill tunnel. North of the tunnel, a separate station,

Warren Hill
, was built for raceday use.

Regular bus services run to the neighbouring towns of Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge, Ely and Mildenhall.

Park and Ride service running from Studlands industrial estate to the town centre, which was replaced by an hourly bus route, the number 11 (formerly number 10), whilst at the same time parking charges were introduced to the town. [citation needed
]

Education

Newmarket has a number of primary schools which feed into the 11–18 Newmarket Academy, the town's only secondary school. The town is also home to an Air Training Corps Squadron (2417 Newmarket Squadron) and an Army Cadet Detachment.

Media

Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC East and ITV Anglia.Television signals are received from the Sandy Heath TV transmitter. [42]

The town is served by both BBC Radio Suffolk and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire including other radio stations Heart East, Star Radio, and Greatest Hits Radio Cambridgeshire.

The local newspaper is the Newmarket Journal. [43]

Sport and leisure

Newmarket has two racecourses,

The July Course, and is home to 3,000 thoroughbred racehorses and over 70 racehorse trainers. The local football team is Newmarket Town. In 2005–06 the club reached the quarter finals of the FA Vase. Newmarket Hockey Club play field hockey,[44]
and Newmarket Cycling and Triathlon club is an amateur cycling club in the town.

A greyhound racing track, was opened around the Cricket Field Road Ground, the venue used by Newmarket Town FC. The racing was independent (not affiliated to the sports governing body the National Greyhound Racing Club) known as a flapping track, which was the nickname given to independent tracks.[45] The track was active shortly after World War II and is known to have also been active during 1967. The date of closure is not known.[46] An earlier instance of racing took place in 1933 at a venue described as the Duchess Drive Stadium.[47]

Healthcare

The Rous Memorial Hospital (1870s-1966)[48]

In 1866 a campaign started to build a cottage hospital in Newmarket.[48] In 1878 the Jockey Club raised £5000 in memory of Admiral Rous.[48] In the twentieth century it became a GP led unit, and was converted into almshouses in 1977. [48]

From the start of the twentieth-century a succession of the matrons were trained at The London Hospital under Matron Eva Luckes.[49] These included:

  • Mary Winifred McDonall, Matron 1900 - [50][49]
  • Ann Maria Tubby, Matron 1906[51] - about 1910.[49][52]
  • Annie Langridge, Matron 1911 - until at least 1939.[53][49][54]
  • Dora Mildred Newman, Matron’s Sick Relief and Holiday Duty, between about 1897[55]-1911.[49][55]

Notable people

2,000 Guineas
.

Famous residents of Newmarket include jockeys

Ryan Moore and Tom Queally as well as trainers Sir Michael Stoute, John Gosden, James Fanshawe, Saeed bin Suroor, Charlie Appleby, and Marco Botti[57] and former West Indian cricketer Michael Holding.[58]

Many wealthy owners of racing stables and studs have also lived in Newmarket, including

Rachel Parsons and Lester Piggott
.

Newmarket is the birthplace of the following people.

Twin towns

Newmarket has three sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International:

See also

Coat of arms of Newmarket, Suffolk
Notes
Granted 15 November 1951, to the Newmarket Urban District Council.[27]
Escutcheon
Vert a Horse courant Argent on a Chief Gules a Lion rampant guardant between two Saxon Crowns Or therein as many Arrows in saltire points downwards of the second.
Motto
'RESPICE FINEM' - Look to the end.

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  6. ^ Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names, A. D. Mills
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  37. ^ "Work begins on £15m racing museum". BBC News. BBC. 28 March 2018. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
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  39. ^ Kelso, Paul (18 December 2009). "Uncivil war shatters Newmarket peace over Lord Derby's housing plans". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022.
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  44. ^ "Newmarket Hockey Club". Newmarket Hockey Club. Retrieved 8 November 2012.
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External links

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Newmarket (Suffolk).
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Newmarket, Suffolk.
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