Bures, Suffolk

Bures, Suffolk and Bures Hamlet Essex straddle the river Stour South of Sudbury, Suffolk.

The interest in Bures from the perspective of this website is that it is close to Belchamp Walter and in researching Belchamp Walter's history and the surrounding area, Bures, Wormingford, Little Horkesley and Nayland show connections to the Bure area.

The Waldegrave family, or some of them, are memorialised in Borley Church. The Waldegrave's originate, or at least are known, to and from Smallbridge Hall, Wormingford. The information found on the Bures-Online website and that found on Wikipedia confirms the connections that I had already established with the Manor of Belchamp Walter.

The Bures Dragon and the chapel if St Stephen in Bures is also of interest as it contains the remains of the tombs of most of the de Vere dynasty.

Bures-online

Bures-online.co.uk is/was an interesting website. There is a LOT of information there and it is obvious that it has been around for some time and there has been a lot of work performed by its creator and contributors. It is a pity that it is not being updated from June 2024.

Reading some of the "disclaimers" and warnings not to copy and use material from the website I get the impression that this has been an issue for some time. While I can understand this point of view, I don't think that it really stands up in the Social Media and general Internet age. I agree with the no advertising and I try and give attribution when I use the information that I have found elsewhere. When it comes to plagiarism, I think that this will have a whole new meaning in the age of generative A.I. There is a wealth of information on Smallbridge Hall and the Waldegrave Family and I would hazard a guess that the plagiarism charge stems from possibly that and that of the story of the Bures Dragon.

The design of the website is what I would call very "old school". I would guess that it was started with an early form of a web-authoring platform, such as Microsoft Front Page. It reminds me a lot of the Maurice Boddy website. The attempts to make the site readable on a mobile device (phone), if this is what was done, are reminicent of my early attempts at responsive design. Centering text in boxes and possibly using tables to format. The result is that while the pages can be viewed on a small screen the navigation is crap! It is very difficult to find your way around even on a large display.

Still, I think that the site is good and also had a bulliten board to allow intereaction with visitors. This is no=longer active.