Aldringham is a village in the Blything Hundred of Suffolk, England. The village is located 1 mile (1½ km) south of Leiston and 3 miles (4½ km) northwest of Aldeburgh close to the North Sea coast. The parish includes the coastal village of Thorpeness. The mid-2005 population estimate for Aldringham cum Thorpe parish was 730. History Aldringham is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as 'Alrincham'. Its placename derivation is uncertain but Ekwall indicates that it probably means "the village of Ealdhere's people": the similarity to Aldeburgh is coincidental or the result of assimilation. There is no manor at Aldringham referred to in the Domesday Survey of 1086, but there are two estates mentioned. One, included in the valuation of Leiston, was in the soc of the bishop at Hoxne, and was held as tenant by Robert Malet. This included seven villeins and a bordar, having 90 acres. The other was a holding of 20 acres and half a ploughteam, and was also held by Robert Malet. Manor of Aldringham The manor of Aldringham, and its church (a vicarage), were in the lordship of Ranulf de Glanvill, Chief Justiciar of England to Henry II, who founded the Augustinian Priory of Butley (1171) and the Premonstratensian Abbey at Leiston (c. 1183). Ranulf originally granted the churches of St Margaret at Leiston and St Andrew at Aldringham to Butley Priory, but it was subsequently approved by the first governors of those houses, Gilbert of Butley and Robert of Leiston, that the churches of Leiston and Aldringham be transferred to Leiston Abbey in exchange for their church of Knodishall. Ranulf's manor in Aldringham, however, remained in his family: W.A. Copinger shows a descent through a supposed son of Ranulf's, William de Glanvill, to William's son Gilbert, to Gilbert's son Sir Ralph de Glanville, and to Sir Ralph's daughter Maud. It then passed by her daughter Sarah's marriage to Sir Robert de Ufford, Justiciar of Ireland (1268-70, 1276-81), whose son Robert (1279-1316) was summoned to Parliament in 1308, and was (by Cecily de Valoines) the father of Sir Robert de Ufford, created 1st Earl of Suffolk in 1337. In this way the manor of Aldringham was attached to the seat of power of the Earls, and later the Dukes, of Suffolk. Although the last-named Robert was granted the reversion of the manor of Benhall (with its patronage of Butley Priory and Leiston Abbey)