At the beginning of the century, the pattern of life in Bardwell had not been much disturbed by the passage of time. The landscape of open fields and heathland which had characterized this part of Suffolk since the middle ages was largely unenclosed, and cottage industries such as linen weaving still contributed a useful addition to the incomes of small farmers and cottagers. The two long-standing gentry families, the Reades at Bardwell Place by the river, and the Rushbrookes at Bowbeck House, were still in residence, as they had been throughout the previous century.

Both Thomas Reade and Cobbes Rushbrooke, however, were to be the last generation of their families in Bardwell, and their deaths resulted in significant social changes for the village. In 1734, when Cobbes Rushbrooke died without a surviving son, his three married daughters inherited the estate, which they sold to the Duke of Grafton. Many land-owners of the time were engaged in enlarging their estates by buying neighbouring land and property as it became available, and it was in this way that the long connection of the Euston Estate with Bardwell began.

Thomas Reade, whose family had been the wealthiest land-owners in the village since the late sixteenth century, never married, and in 1769 he died in his carriage near Place Farm, whilst on his way to go fishing. His will caused quite a scandal, one correspondent saying in a letter "the whole county think it a most iniquitous transaction". It appears that, shortly before making the will, Mr.Reade had fallen out with the Crofts family of West Harling, who were his closest relatives and had considered themselves to be his heirs. As a result of the ill feeling, Mr. Reade made his friends the Lofft family the main beneficiaries, which not surprisingly upset Richard Crofts, who spent the next two years trying to contest the will. The opinion of those who knew Mr. Reade seemed to be that he was a weak man, easily imposed upon, and that Christopher Lofft had exercised undue influence over him. Certainly the will was written in Mr Lofft's own handwriting, and he made himself no friends by the comment, made to more than one person, "You know it was easy to change the name of Crofts to Lofft." Whatever the truth of the situation, the will could not be overturned, and the estate was sold off. By 1779, the moated house by the river, with its drawbridge that Mr Reade used to have pulled up at dusk every day so that no-one could enter or leave, was gone, and only the moat remained. A chapter of Bardwell history had closed, and the village no longer had a resident squire.

The other significant land-holding which came into the ownership of an absentee landlord at this time was the Bardwell Hall estate. The manor of Bardwell Hall itself had been sold by the Rushbrooke family around 1690, and by 1725 it had become part of a larger estate owned by Sir William Lee, who was later to become Lord Chief Justice of England. He never lived in Bardwell, and neither did his son, William, who inherited in 1754. The estate at that time consisted of the original manor house, Bardwell Hall, which is now Moat House, another farm called at the time Bardwell Farm, but now known as Bardwell Hall, the blacksmith's house and yard, now The Cottage, and a farm in Badwell Ash. It appears from correspondence, however, that the estate was proving something of a liability, and in 1765 William Lee sold it to Patrick Blake of Langham. The Blake family continued as owners and lords of the manor of Bardwell Hall into the twentieth century, although they were not resident in the village until the 1880's, when they built Bardwell Manor.

Another respected member of the community in the eighteenth century was the clothier and yeoman farmer, Thomas Turpin. He owned and occupied the house now known as the Old Farmhouse, and was largely influential in establishing the Quaker movement in Bardwell. The movement was at the height of its popularity in England during the first two decades of the eighteenth century, and meetings began to be held in the village in 1701. Thomas Turpin then built the Meeting House, with its attached burial ground, on his land, and bequeathed it to the Quakers by his will of 1723. A new Meeting House was erected in Bury in about 1750, however, and this inevitably led to a decline in the attendance at Bardwell; in 1787 the congregation was joined to the Bury Meeting, although some evening meetings continued to be held in Bardwell until 1841. The Victorian Methodist Chapel stands on the site now, but the memory of the Meeting House lives on in the name of Quaker Lane.

Among the houses in the village having their origins in this period are Vine Farm, the present Watermill Farmhouse and Dun Cow Cottage, as well as the symmetrical frontage of Bowbeck House, although we know from the evidence of wills that there was a house on the site long before this. Extensions were made to Littlemoor Hall and to Booty Hall, and it is in about 1790 that we first encounter John Booty himself, who was to live at the house for over fifty years, and from whom it takes its name. The fine red-brick portion of Mansard House was built onto the older section, probably at the behest of John Clarke, the butcher and farmer who lived there from about 1765 until his death in 1790. In Low Street, the Maltings was built early in the eighteenth century, possibly by Francis Munns, who was a maltster in 1744. The family seem to have been in this business for many years, as in 1692 John Munns is also described as a maltster.
   

We are also able to identify positively the site of a windmill in the village, as a map of 1779 shows it to have been positioned near the top of Knox Lane. This was a post mill, owned at that time by the Sparke family, and although we cannot tell when it was built, the adjacent area shown on that map as Mill Hill is also known by that name in 1678, so it would appear that the mill had been there for at least a hundred years. In 1829 the present tower mill was built, and the old mill was dismantled and moved to Hopton in March1834.

The eighteenth century gives us our first glimpse of education for the poor of the village, in the form of an endowed school. A legacy of £50 had been left to the village by Thomas Reade in 1677 for the education of poor children, and by 1723 this had been invested in a house and land in Stanton which brought in a yearly rent of £4. This was applied "for the teaching of poor children to read which is now taught by Alice the wife of Edward Bradley." The endowment paid for eight pupils at this time, and it is probable that Mrs Bradley ran her school in a room of her own house. She may also have taken other pupils at the cost of a small fee. This endowed school continued in use throughout the century, and into the next, and by 1844 it had seventy pupils and two schoolmistresses.

It was of course still the responsibility of the parish to provide for its poor inhabitants, and an official known as the overseer of the poor was elected annually to manage this. He was usually chosen from amongst the farmers or craftsmen of the community, and he would have to decide on the merits of applications for relief, and account for his expenditure at the end of his term of office. Payments were made according to need, usually when people were in difficulties due to illness, or an injury which meant they were unable to work for a time, or a death which had put an extra strain on limited resources. The overseer was empowered to levy a local rate to cover the costs of poor relief, and this was supplemented by the village charities and money raised from the Town Estate. The guildhall remained in use as rent-free housing for the poor, mostly elderly widows and widowers, who were therefore able to spend their last years in their own community.         By the end of the century, England was at war with France. The disruption to the supplies of imported goods had doubled the price of food, and the demand for corn created a temporary period of prosperity for farmers. Throughout Suffolk, the population had been rising steadily during the eighteenth century, and Bardwell in 1801 had 556 inhabitants, occupying 66 houses. This increasing population, and the depression in agriculture which followed the war, were crucial factors in the impoverishment which was to become such an intrinsic aspect of rural life in Suffolk in the nineteenth century.