Hasketon is very close to the market town of Woodbridge with Ipswich only 6/7 miles away. The Turks Head is an ideal place to stop whilst you are touring the local area visiting the many picturesque villages, the River Deben with its famous Tide Mill, Sutton Hoo or the Heritage Coast.
The Turks Head at Hasketon is a traditional country pub set in large gardens in rural Suffolk. We normally have three locally sourced cask conditioned real ales on tap, including the multi-award winning Woodforde's Wherry from Norfolk and Adnam’s Southwold Bitter. These are complemented by Aspall Suffolk Cyder and the most recent addition to our line-up, Caffrey’s draught. The kitchen also uses local produce wherever possible.
The Turks Head received national press coverage in 2009 when nine local people got together and formed a consortium to keep the pub open and run as an asset to the community as well as a viable business. Two years down the line we are going from strength to strength.
Click here to see what Suffolk CAMRA have to say.
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The front part of the present building was erected in the 15th century. It has been suggested that it was originally a salt house on the river, which at the time was navigable as far as Clopton. While the drainage of East Anglia has changed considerably in the intervening five hundred years, this seems unlikely. What is certain is that it was for many years a farmhouse with three barns on site, one situated in what is now the top car park, adjacent to the single remaining barn, and only becoming a public house c1760.
The origin of the name is not certain, but a knight returning from the crusades would usually incorporate a Turks head into his coat of arms. In the mid-eighteenth century England was still a feudal society and it was common at that time, particularly in East Anglia for a pub to adopt the coat of arms of the local landowner. A good example of this is the Saracens Head near Erpingham Norfolk, which lies almost directly opposite the entrance of Wolterton Hall, built for Horatio Walpole, brother of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. However in our case it would probably have been the then resident of Lowood.
By 1924 the Turks Head was in the ownership of the Cobbold brewery, which at one point owned over 300 pubs in the area. In 1957 they merged with the other local family brewers Tollemache, to form Tolly Cobbold, which in turn was bought out by the Barclay Brothers in 1983, then again by Brent Walker in 1989. Several changes of ownership have since followed as a result of corporate takeovers.
More on the barn:-
It does not take a particularly close inspection of the framing to see that several of the timbers have had a previous life (an early example of recycling). Many have unused mortises and other various notches cut out, and our proximity to the sea has led to the suggestion that some may be reclaimed ships timbers. In the middle ages barns were often built in such a way that they could be dismantled, moved and re-erected elsewhere, so it seems more likely that the bent and twisted beams are a result of being cut ‘green’ and taking on their present shape as they seasoned.