Bildeston, (or Bilston), is a parish in the hundred of Cosford, in the county of Suffolk, 5 miles to the N.W. of Hadleigh, where is the nearest station of the Great Eastern railway. Ipswich is its post town. It lies in a pleasant valley, watered by a small stream, a branch of the river Bret. This place was once a market town, and the seat of a woollen manufacture.