| Country: | England |
| Official Name: | Great Bealings |
| Static Image: | GreatBealingsSign.JPG |
| Static Image Width: | 240px |
| Static Image Caption: | Great Bealings village sign |
| Coordinates: | 52.094°N 1.257°W |
| Population: | 302 |
| Area Total Km2: | 4.19 |
| Population Ref: | (2011) |
| Shire District: | East Suffolk |
| Region: | East of England |
| Shire County: | Suffolk |
| Constituency Westminster: | Central Suffolk and North Ipswich |
| Post Town: | Woodbridge |
| Postcode Area: | IP |
| Postcode District: | IP13 |
| Dial Code: | 01473 |
| Os Grid Reference: | TM231489 |
Great Bealings is a small village in Suffolk, England.
It has about 302 people living in it in around 113 households.[1] Its nearest towns are Ipswich (6miles away) and Woodbridge (2.6miles). Nearby villages include Little Bealings, Playford, Culpho, Hasketon and Grundisburgh. The village does not have an obvious centre, and the population is split between two areas — one around Lower Street to the East of the village, and the other at Boot Street/Grundisburgh Road to the West of the village. St Mary's, the village church, is about in the middle of these two centres of population.
The village shares a playing field with Little Bealings, which is located behind the joint Village Hall, and includes a grassed plateau, a fenced and hard surfaced multi-sports court, children's play equipment, and a boules piste. It is named after John Ganzoni, Lord Belstead, who lived in the village for many years, and whose Charitable Trust Fund supported the project.
The River Lark passes through the middle of the village, and is crossed by the main road with a humpback bridge.[2]
In the Domesday Book there is mention of the Saxon Hall, owned by Halden, with Anund the priest in attendance. This was on the meadow by the church and was owned by several families such as the de Peche, Clench, and Majors, who knocked it down in 1775 to use the material to aid the construction of Bealings House.
The village has always had a strong agricultural base with several small farms. In White's gazetteer of Suffolk in 1855, the listed tradesmen are: brickmaker, two boot makers, builder, wheelwright, blacksmith, gardener, shopkeeper, and miller as well as several farmers and gentlemen.
In 1870–72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described the village as:
BEALINGS (Great), a parish in Woodbridge district, Suffolk; on a branch of the Deben river, and on the East Suffolk railway, near Bealings station, 2¼. miles W by S of Woodbridge. Post Town, Little Bealings, under Woodbridge. Acres, 1,029. Real property, £2,091. Pop., 338. Houses, 88. The property is divided among a few; and much of it belongs to-Lord Henniker. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Norwich. Value, £250.* Patron, Lord Henniker. The church is good.[3]
In 1887, John Bartholomew also wrote an entry on Great Bealings in the Gazetteer of the British Isles with a much shorter description:
Bealings, Great, par., E. Suffolk, 2½ miles W. of Woodbridge, 1036 ac., pop. 287.[4]
Plaques in the church list the following Rectors:
| Anund the Priest | 1086 | |
| Mathew de Stanton | 1306 | |
| Geoffrey de Banhale | 1307 | |
| Richard de Westhorpe | 1331 | |
| Reginald Bustard | 1338 | |
| Stephen de Duddeley | 1341 | |
| Robert de Appleton | 1343 | |
| Radulphus de Ipswich | 1349 | |
| Nicholas de Lydgate | 1349 | |
| John Joye | 1350 | |
| William de Drayton | 1352 | |
| Robert de Hethe | 1375 | |
| John Tubbyng | 1395 | |
| John Stratton | 1407 | |
| William Jowle | 1448 | |
| Robert Coppyng | 1464 | |
| John Jacob | 1476 | |
| Richard Williamson | 1517 | |
| John Walker | 1517 | |
| John Fayerthwat | 1536 | |
| Robert Baxter | 1542 | |
| Robert Gybsonne | 1560 | |
| Richard Larwood | 1566 | |
| Robert Hutchinson M.A. | 1607 | |
| William Gibbins B.A. | 1629 | |
| Edmund Smith B.A. | 1653 | |
| Edmund Brome | 1672 | |
| Richard Cavell | 1719 | |
| Robert Hingeston M.A. | 1726 | |
| Wm Dobbyns Humphrey | 1766 | |
| Philip Meadows B.A. | 1804 | |
| Wm Chafie Henniker M.A. | 1838 | |
| Edward Jas. Moor B.A. | 1844 | |
| Howard Beech M.A. | 1886 | |
| Francis B Champion M.A. | 1917 | |
| Frank Mitton | 1930 | |
| George H Round-Turner | 1936 | |
| David T Jarvis B.A. | 1945 | |
| John McMillen O.C.S. | 1954 | |
| Denis Spencer A.K.C. | 1956 | |
| J G Steven A.L.C.D H.C.R | 1970 | |
| Frank Hollingsworth | 1975 | |
| Michael Skliros | 1991 | |
| Christine Everett | 1996 | |
| Pauline Stentiford | 2003 | |
| Celia Cook | 2015 |