A SUTTON LIST Hello ! . . to all other places called Sutton, wherever you be. It certainly is an incredibly common name around England. Like most places of this name in Britain, we take our name from Sud tone ... being the Saxon name first given to the settlement of dwellings on this low ridge that rises just above the surrounding flood plain, Sud being 'south", and tone being a form of 'tun', denoting a small farmstead or settlement. We've been here for well over a 1,000 years, our oldest church is over 700 years old, and until some 100 years ago, we were properly titled 'Sutton in Holderness' after the rural plain to our east towards the coast. Our name is Saxon, but this area was variously and repeatedly invaded by Vikings and Danes, many of whom stole our womenfolk and so got citizen's rights and settled, and lastly by Normans, who transformed much of England. In more recent times, we became 'Sutton on Hull", taking that name from the nearby river that used to regularly flood in winter and practically surround us with water. It could well be that the 'Hull' name became attached purely to distinguish the place from several other Sutton's around England.  Previously, up to Tudor/Jacobean times, we were Sutton-in-Holderness.  We could just as easily have become a "Sutton-in-the-Isle" like the one in the Cambridgeshire fens, though perhaps our little mound, isle, was not high enough to warrant that distinction.  The highest point in our village even today is only around 10m, or roughly 30ft in old money, but it's enough to stand out of the surrounding wetness in old times before the area was drained and settled and so allowing all-year access a great deal more. Fortunately, some very kindly monks in the 1100s started an abbey nearby and dug a lot of very deep ditches to drain the land to make it more fit to graze sheep, and so over the centuries, the land dried out quite a bit and was less prone to flooding. Sadly, we never did find out who those nice monks were, or get their number, to thank them. But it still does flood around here, occasionally, the last serious time being in 2007. When it comes to water, and that 'F' word, we've learnt never to say never. We are now a part of the City of Hull, which stands at the mouth of that same pesky river as it exits into the Humber estuary, and from which the city also takes its name. Fortunately for us in Sutton, as we've seen, we are on a little bit of an isle, so our museum is always dry. But if ever someone called Noah happens to drop by selling boats, we will take note. Hull is more properly and formally called 'Kingston upon Hull', having been chartered in 1299 by the medieval king, Edward 1, so becoming a 'kings town'. But colloquially, local residents know it just as Hull. Indeed, we are now officially a 'City of Culture', or became so in 2017, and so being 'cultural', residents can now officially drop the 'aitch' as they've always done and just call it 'Ull. This puts us on equal footing at last with Londoners who don't pronounce their 'd' and add an extra 'n', or poshest-of-posh Cheltenham who likewise never pronounce their aitch, and Norwich who never pronounce their 'w'. The villages of Sutton, and Wawne our near neighbour to whom we are inextricably linked by our history, sit to the north and north-east of Hull, about three miles from the city centre. In case you're wondering, Wawne is pronounced 'Worn' and rhymes with corn, dawn, gorn and forlorn. Our version of English is the correct one, and very straightforward. There are other places around England that have a similar root to their name, but went off in a totally different historical direction, so not appearing to have any connection whatsoever.  Consider Southam .. there are about 7 such places, where the settlement was already large enough to be a 'ham', or hamlet.  Consider also the port city of Southampton .. yes, the same root to it's name as our Sutton, but a far larger hamlet.  When exploring English place names, as with surnames and with which there is a huge crossover, there is rarely a very simple explanation as to why this one and not that one.  Much more can be found out about us by exploring the links and articles around our website .. click here if you came to this page directly and can't see our Home Page, then click the "Other Suttons" button near the bottom of the Home Page to come back to this page. We hope you enjoy your visit ... and perhaps come and visit us one day. You can get here now by bike, bus or car, though no longer by rail, and we can almost guarantee that whilst on this little more than a glorified burial mound, you'll not need your wellies.  Though we do recommend a coat, and sometimes a hat. Each of these links below will open in a new browser window, leaving this page open behind. Our First Link is to the Sutton within our Capital City, SUTTON, IN SURBITON, SOUTH LONDON. As with us, this Sutton was once a village, now swallowed up by a huge city.  Also takes up most of the first few hundred links in Google to schools, welfare, clubs and societies named for the place.   Our next links have to be two of our near-namesakes, and like us, small English villages. The first is SUTTON ST JAMES, that being the full name of the village in South Lincolnshire, and which takes it's name from the dedicatee of its medieval church. That St James church has a detached tower, this being some 66 feet away from the main nave, the consequence of a mishap in 1650. Their website simply states that a section of the nave 'disappeared', perhaps something to do with the Civil War. Sadly, the previous site has disappeared, and all we are left with is this rather bland 'municipal' site, roadworks, bin collections, local council contacts, etc. If you want history, and a photo, only thing to do is checkout Wikipedia.  It's a very pretty place. Not all good websites survive; much is down to the health of the webmaster maintaining a site, often 'getting on in years', and cost, and who in a village wants to take it on.   Here, something has gone amiss. Like us, SUTTON, NEAR MACCLESFIELD, Cheshire, also has a church dedicated to St James. Their postcode is SK11 0DS if you want to easily find it on Streetmap. ST JAMES' CHURCH, in LOUTH, Lincolnshire Before we go on to more Suttons, please allow a digression to tell you of another St James'. Of course, there are innumerable churches around Britain, indeed, around the world, dedicated to St James. But there is one that is an absolute stunner, and not so far away from us, just over the water in Lincolnshire. The magnificent St James at Louth is a glory in glass, wood and stone. Visible from miles around with it's tallest spire, you can't miss it. Indeed, you shouldn't miss it. Heartily recommended. The lovely market town itself, not unlike Beverley in atmosphere with lots of smaller, independant shops, is worth a nice day just for itself. St James' is the crowning glory. SUTTON VILLAGE CHURCH, in Sutton, near St Helens on Merseyside .. is another example of a village being almost swallowed up by a larger neighbour. In this case, St Helens. Their church website is more interactive than ours, lessons to be learnt there to make ours more interesting. Their postcode for a quick find is WA9 3LE SUTTON IN THE ISLE ... a lovely website to this beautiful Cambridgeshire village, just halfway between Ely and Chatteris. Good design, well laid out, and a comprehensive War Memorial page. It's easy to see the local influence in the church architecture, as their St Andrew's has an octagonal lantern tower, very reminiscent of a miniature Ely, just up the A142 to the east. "In the Isle," it may well be, and the more so in former times, and in that sense, it has much in common with our Sutton. Lots of webbed feet around there too at one time, methinks. SUTTON-on-the-FOREST is the first of three other Yorkshire Suttons we have for you, 8 miles north of York. Like our Sutton, it has a long Norman and medieval history and also was once simply styled "Sudtone". Very pretty, and worth a visit. SUTTON on DERWENT with more ancient history. South-east of York, down some lovely lanes south of the modern main A1079 York-Hull road, this beautiful village was astride the ancient Roman road from York to Brough.  The road runs along a raised stone-walled causeway across the flood meadows to where it crossed the Yorkshire Derwent.  Traffic lights now control the flow of traffic on the narrow medieval bridge, where houseboats and narrowboats can be seen moored and a host of wildlife may be observed.  SUTTON-IN-CRAVEN is sited on the southern edge of the Airedale valley, approximately equidistant between the towns of Skipton and Keighley. This link takes you to their village web site. SUTTON HOO  we cannot leave out one of the oldest Suttons in England, the site of the discovery of that famous ancient helmet in 1939 at an excavated ship burial. Said to date from around 620-625AD and the time of King Raedwald of East Anglia.  Wikipaedia tells all .. Go and see .. .. SUTTON on the HILL  of course, there has to be a confusion with lots of other Suttons in England.  This one is in Derbyshire, not by a river on the flat like us, but on a hill.  We're on a little bit of a hill too, well, more of a glorified burial mound really, but we could easily have ended up with the same name.  This one has a church with a steeple dedicated to St Michael that really stands out from far away, and takes its origins from the same source as our Sutton, a variation of the spelling of 'Sudtun', and the same meaning back in history. SUTTON . . . in Bedfordshire, just to the east of the A1, and NE of Biggleswade. A lovely linear village along a long lane which has an intriguing link to an old favourite of history, the redoubtable John O'Gaunt, son of Edward III. A small hill on the other side of the lane to the church is marked 'John O'Gaunt's Hill', said to have been the site of a fortified manor house that was demolished to make way for the land's current use, a golf course! It is marked as a 'scheduled ancient monument,' though all that's left now is a hillock surrounded by a grove of trees. The land there was also part of an estate called Sutton Park, and 1880s maps mark it as the site of a pheasantry. There are several locations around England with that name, and when researching history, it's so easy to latch on to the wrong one, and is another good example of how many other Suttons there are around, most of them deriving their name from pre-Norman times when they would have been spelt Sudtone, as was ours. The link takes you to a Bedfordshire County Council link for country walks, with a map and descriptive tour around the region, taking in it's history. SUTTON . . . in New South Wales is not far from the sea, about 11 miles from Canberra.  On the west bank of the Yass River, listed as a 'perennial river', ie, one that flows all the time, never dries up.  A bit like ours.  A settlement from the 1860s, and site of a noted Australian public school from 1870, it is also the site of a 'Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade'.  Their summers are somewhat warmer than ours too. SUTTON . . . in Ontario a rather larger settlement than most British Suttons, other than our London one.  With a population of around 6,000 folks, dated of this name from around the 1820s, it's online listing does claim a possible historical link with our Sutton. Though nothing definite, a named family or direct source, appears to be attributable at the moment.  Something to be discovered, we think.  Surrounded by lush forest and farmland, just inland from Lake Simcoe, the main highway to the south leads to Toronto.  With places nearby named Keswick, Eastbourne, Brighton, and even a Mt Pleasant, English visitors would be best advised to take a good map.  On balance, it looks lovely. SUTTON  . . . in Quebec  with a population of less than 5,000, it is a very rural and popular tourist area close to the US border just 8 miles to the south.  The name may be British, settled since around 1802 and becoming a municipality in 1892, but local names are very French, belaying its earlier colonialist origins before ours.  Local street names are 'Rue' this or Rue that. THE CITY OF SUTTON in Nebraska, in the USA, is our first example of Sutton abroad. Their website claims they only have 1,500 residents, but judging by the map and the size of their public services, I suspect they missed a nought off there. Interestingly, they also have an 'advert' for organisation called 'Code Amber', dedicated to tracing abducted children. They encourage the use of the code as a ticker-tape banner on private and commercial websites, on which are posted emergency notices of children that go missing and suspected of abduction. Perhaps it's time for something similar in the UK. Also, their city has a thriving historical society. Their website quotes: "The Sutton Museum is the home of the Sutton Historical Society and is dedicated to the collection and preservation of historic artifacts and information about the Sutton, Nebraska community." They are not unlike us, in that they are concerned with preserving their heritage and old buildings. Very interesting, Take a Look. They have a problem that we around our Sutton would recognise; they have their museum in an old school house right by the side of a creek with high banks, not unsimilar to our River Hull. Fortunately for us, our museum is on almost the highest ground around here, but this American museum flooded badly in 2015. They have our commiserations indeed. We know how much hard work goes into these places. The town of SUTTON, MASSACHUSETTS, is a far-flung rural New England community, very heavily wooded and as picturesque as you would expect for that area. I do like the name of their Puckihuddle Pre-School ... This Sutton has a beauty spot called Purgatory Chasm, but I don't think it's quite the same as our own Sutton Trod. On reflection, that could be styled a 'chasm'. In England, there are many other places called Sutton, including in South Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, Norfolk, Staffordshire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, Oxfordshire, Kent, West Sussex, and even a Welsh one, in Pembrokeshire ! Many others are like ours, in that they have another locality name to identify them, such as Sutton-in-the-Forest, Guilden Sutton, Sutton in the Isle, Long Sutton, Sutton Coldfield and Sutton in Ashfield. I particularly like the name of the Leicestershire hamlet of SUTTON in the ELMS .. there's a few more elms there now after some recent replanting, when, like most of southern England, they lost all the mature and stately elms that gave this ancient place its name. Until those new trees mature, perhaps in another 50 years, the two tallest trees in the village appear to be a large Scots pine, and an almost as large silver birch. But, even with only young sapling elms, it's still an attractive place. As one person commented when replying to the above link, which is a private blog not updated since 2012, visiting those pages is like looking at a microcosm of England. Hear hear to that. Their history suggests that their origins are also bound up in the Saxon name Sudtun, in a similar fashion to our Sutton. Another historic point of interest is the connection to The Quakers, and George Fox's first outdoor meeting. The Quaker house stands in the village still. For even more places, in the UK and around the world, including a  see the Wikipedia directory page for Sutton where the Australian, Canadian and American links were taken from. * * * * * *