Snape

There has been human habitation at Snape for some 2,000 years though the original village stood on higher ground, around the present church (it is not known why the village moved nearer to the river). The Romans established a settlement here, centred on salt production. In Anglo-Saxon times the Wuffingas (who ruled East Anglia from Rendlesham) used Snape largely as a burial site, and archaeological investigations have revealed ship burials and other graves. In 1085 the Domesday Book recorded forty-nine men. The book also mentions a church, standing in eight acres, and valued at sixteen pence (a larger sum than it now sounds). The present church, however, originally thatched, was built in…