Why visit Exning
Townapedia lists 3 museums and landmarks, 2 parks and trails and 12 places to eat in and around town.
Highlights include Burwell Museum, Burwell Castle and Fordham Woods.
Weather in Exning
Forecast from MET Norway (CC BY 4.0). Full forecast
About Exning
Exning is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England.
From the Wikipedia article Exning (this version), under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Museums and landmarks3
Burwell Museum
Museum · 1.9 mi
Mill museum in Cambridgeshire, England, United Kingdom
Burwell Castle
Monument and historic site · 2.1 mi
12th-century castle in England
National Horseracing Museum
Museum · 2.1 mi
Sports museum in Newmarket, United Kingdom
Parks, trails and playgrounds2
Restaurants and cafes12
The Wheatsheaf
Bar and pub
Currently (April 2021) closed, though some hope of reopening.
45 Chapel Street, Exning
Churches and places of worship5
Church of St Mary the Virgin
Church · 2.0 mi
Church in Burwell, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
History
Local lore reputes Exning to have been the capital of the Iceni tribe and therefore the home of Queen Boadicea (Boudica).
"The Island", a moated earthworks to the south of the parish is no longer visible following the building of the Newmarket bypass (originally part of the A45, before being redesignated the A14 in 1973. This led to the destruction of the site and its consequential delisting as a scheduled monument. However the site was examined before its destruction.
Exning is reputed to have been the birthplace of Saint Ethelreda, to whom Ely Cathedral is dedicated, though this is disputed.
A spring at Exning was named St Wendreda's Well, and a local legend had it that the seventh-century Saint Wendreda used its water for healing. Newmarket jockeys used to take horses there to drink before a race.
The 1075 marriage at Exning, unsanctioned by King William I, between the Earl of East Anglia, Ralph de Gael, and Emma de Breteuil, the daughter of the powerful William FitzOsbern may have started the Revolt of the Earls.
Read more of the history
At the time of William the Conqueror, Exning was in Staploe Hundred. Later, the settlement was in the Liberty of Ely. When the powers of the Liberty were reduced, some of its territory returned to Suffolk, including Exning – albeit as a part of Lackford Hundred, where it would remain until the Victorian period. For several centuries, the part of Suffolk centred on Exning was almost an enclave of the county within the confines of Cambridgeshire. The parish of Newmarket All Saints was transferred from Cambridgeshire to this virtual enclave in 1894, but it continued to be practically detached until boundary changes in the area widened considerably the "bridge" between it and the rest of Suffolk a hundred years later.
The Rosery Hotel is an early Victorian building which was frequently visited by Queen Mary.
During the Second World War, the headquarters of No. 3 Group of RAF Bomber Command were located in Harraton House. Nearby Newmarket Heath, the northwest corner of which borders on Exning, was used as an airfield, RAF Newmarket, for, amongst others, Stirling III Bombers of No. 75 (NZ) Squadron RAF. Little evidence remains of this chapter in Exning's history, apart from a single aircraft hangar on Heath Road, Burwell (near the One Thousand Guineas Connect service station on the A14 trunk road) and a memorial plaque on the racecourse.
On Thursday 15 December 1977, General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark 70-2380 of the 493rd Tactical Fighter Squadron in Suffolk, suffered a hydraulic failure and crashed 300 yards from the Scaltback Middle School. Both air crew ejected, landing a few miles away.
Captain Thomas E. Bergam, 29, WSO from New London, Connecticut
From the History section of Exning on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable people from Exning
ÆthelthrythAbbess of ElyPhoto: monk, Public domain- Anna of East AngliaKing of the East Angles
- WendredaAnglo-Saxon nun and saint
Born in Exning, according to Wikidata (CC0). Each name links to its Wikipedia article.
Shopping4
Gas and EV charging4
Schools, colleges and libraries4
Healthcare2
Map of Exning
36 places. The map loads OpenStreetMap tiles when you open it.
Getting there and nearby towns
RAF Mildenhall (MHZ) is the nearest airport with scheduled flights listed in OpenStreetMap, 8 miles away.
- Newmarket 2 mi southeast, about 3 min by car
- Mildenhall 8 mi northeast, about 13 min by car
- Stretham 9 mi northwest, about 14 min by car
- Ely 10 mi northwest, about 17 min by car
- Wilburton 10 mi northwest, about 16 min by car
- Cambridge 12 mi southwest, about 19 min by car
- Haverhill 13 mi south, about 21 min by car
- Oakington 13 mi west, about 21 min by car
- Bury St Edmunds 14 mi east, about 23 min by car
- Whittlesford 14 mi southwest, about 23 min by car
Drive times are estimates from straight-line distance, not routes.
Towns near Exning
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Sources and licences
- GeoNames (CC BY 4.0): population, coordinates, regions and time zone
- Mapillary (see each image): photos
- OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0): places, airports, map data
- Wikidata (CC0 1.0): elevation, founding date, time zone, website, landmarks and historic places
- Wikimedia Commons (see each image): photos
- Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0): overview and history text
Photo credits
- Burwell museum - mill, Senra , John McCullough, CC BY 3.0
- St Mary the Virgin, Burwell - 2, Senra , John McCullough, CC BY 3.0
- Street-level photo, adam2, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Street-level photo, adam2, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Street-level photo, edloach, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Street-level photo, IpswichEdits, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Street-level photo, IpswichEdits, CC BY-SA 4.0
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