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Sudbury may only be a small town, but it's a mighty town with many wonderful people, businesses and features. As it’s St George's Day, I have put together 10 reasons why I love Sudbury. I’d love to hear yours too
1. Art It's the birth place of Thomas Gainsborough who left the town a wonderful legacy of art. This May, Art Around Town is coming to Sudbury. More art is being displayed in Sudbury than any other town in Suffolk! Read about it here
2. Micro-Breweries and Award Winning Vineyards. If you're a fan of real ale, then you live in the right place. Not only does Suffolk house the big boys of brewing, Adnams and Greene King, but we have some excellent microbreweries; Mill Green, Nethergate, Mauldons. (The beer I brewed with Mill Green is officially launched 2nd May. Click here to find out more) If wine is more your cup of tea, Lavenham Brook Farm and Giffords Hall, just a few miles from Sudbury, have award winning wines, from grapes grown here in West Suffolk
3. Music Festivals - Suffolk hosts excellent music festivals like Latitude and FolkEast, but just outside Sudbury we have LeeStock, which has grown in popularity from pub carparks to Melford Hall in eight years. Celebrating great local acts, groups such as Scouting for Girls, Dodgy and Dumbfoundus will be performing this year. Less than a month later, The Crown at Hartest will be hosting Harfest; a music and beer festival for the family, June 19-21st
4. A supportive and wonderful community - Just before Christmas, 2014, a house fire left a family of four homeless. Within 72 hours, 300 items had been donated by the community of Sudbury. Local businesses rallied to help. Sudbury Secure Storage donated space to store the items, plus there were further donations from Tescos, Sainsburys and Stag and Doe. What a generous town!
5. Sudbury's still very much a market town with two markets a week and the excellent farmers market once a month. It's always a pleasure to pick up locally sourced produce and fresh, reasonably priced vegetables and meat. In June, we can look forward to A Taste of Sudbury - an opportunity to sample some of the deliciousness that we can find here in Sudbury. If it was anything like last year, then we're in for a real treat
6. Free parking.. Yes folks. Free parking for up to three hours here in Sudbury. You don't get that in many towns any more.
7. Beautiful surrounding countryside, bluebells in Arger Fen, the town's stunning water meadows and Gainsborough Trail, the old railway walk to Long Melford, picnicing by the River Stour, not forgetting the boat trips or canoeing from Bakers Mill in Great Cornard to the Henny Swan.
8. I always appreciate how pretty our surrounding villages are; Lavenham, Long Melford, Clare, Cavendish, Boxford and Hadleigh are all great places to visit and live.
9. Sudbury has an independent record shop, Compact Music. Sudbury is one of the few remaining towns that has an independent record shop, which means we can celebrate World Record Store Day. This year’s event was another great success
10. Silk Mills. Did you know Sudbury is the silk capital of England? There are still four silk firms carrying on Sudbury's proud tradition, now over 200 years old. 110 metric tons of silk comes annually into our town and supplied silk used in the Queen’s Coronation Gown back in 1953.
11. More community groups you can shake a stick at. A few weeks ago, I popped along to Sudbury on Show, where charities and groups showcased some of the activities and work they do. For a town with a population of just over 13,000, despite what Fiona Bruce suggests, there’s an awful lot going on
These are just some of the reasons why I love Sudbury. I’d love to hear what you love about our lovely market town
(A big thank you to Trevor Burch Photography for the use of his photos)
