From wild and windswept beaches to medieval villages and friendly old inns, Suffolk is a richly rewarding place to while away a few days in winter, writes Stephanie Cross
DISCOVER
If there’s one word that sums up the Suffolk coast in winter, it’s enchanted. As you approach from inland, the mellow, low sunlight changes, becomes purer. There’s a sense of the spiritual – a thinner veil between worlds. Long gone are the busy summer days with tourists thronging for ice creams and selfies. Now, there’s a stillness, a hush.
Under the huge, ever-changing skies, nature reasserts itself; skeins of geese arrow through the air, their haunting, evocative calls somehow making the empty landscape seem even bigger. Watchful deer break from cover, daintily picking their way across heaths rimed with frost. Marshes and reedbeds make for a sere palette of browns, greens and greys. But on crisp, sunny days, the skies are an impossible shade of blue, and endless.
Inland, the enchantment is of a different kind. Historic, orange-roofed market towns sparkle with lights; Christmas trees stand sentinel in squares and on greens; ancient, flint-knapped churches are expectant with the season; timbered inns glow with feet and finger-warming log fires.
The contrast between cosiness and wild grandeur is what makes Suffolk so special at this time of year. The result is a county that spoils visitors for choice.
MATERIAL TOWNS
A good place to begin is with Suffolk’s famous wool towns, built when the medieval trade was at its height. Full of grand, timber-framed merchants’ houses and impressive churches that are testament to the region’s wealth, they are also home to a host of independent shops.
Start with Lavenham, one of England’s best preserved medieval villages. With more than 300 listed buildings, its centrepiece is an immense 14th-century Guildhall. Galleries, boutiques and tearooms abound, as in the other nearby wool towns of Hadleigh, Long Melford and Clare – all equally pretty and made for browsing.
If you’re after a unique present this Christmas, chances are you will find it in one of the county’s abundant antique shops. Suffolk is, after all, where Ian McShane’s roguish Lovejoy once famously plied his trade. Marlesford Mill offers three storeys of eclectic c
