SHEAR DELIGHT

Travel back in time with a visit to Suffolk’s pretty-as-a-picture wool towns, thriving centres of the woven cloth trade in the Middle Ages

- MONICA WOODS

Spend a long weekend in a certain patch of southern Suffolk, nestled along the River Stour and its tributaries, and you’d be forgiven for thinking you had slipped back in time. The five towns of Sudbury, Lavenham, Long Melford, Clare and Hadleigh seem to encapsulate an England of yesteryear, with their market squares, winding streets lined with crooked timber-framed houses and often disproportionately grand churches.

These ‘wool towns’ owe their architectural appeal to the boom and bust they experienced as centres of the medieval wool trade. In the 15th century, these quiet villages became hubs of feverish industry, with much of the work to produce woollen cloth taking place within local people’s homes. As the region flourished, impressive houses, guildhalls and churches sprang up – and almost all remain standing, a consequence of the sharp decline that followed the boom.

The bustling market town of Sudbury is a natural gateway to the area, with its proximity to Colchester and fast rail connections to London. It lies roughly at the midpoint of the five wool towns, prettily located on the River Stour. Location and transport links were key to Sudbury’s success; the wealth that the wool trade generated is clear to see in the imposing St Peter’s Church and handsome timber-framed merchants’ houses along Stour Street.

Textile manufacture is still thriving in Sudbury today – in fact, the town is known as England’s Silk Capital. When demand for woollen cloth started to dwindle in the 16th century, enterprising Sudbury weavers found a new outlet for their expertise, turning first to lighter fabrics such as cotton and crepe. Silk weaving followed, as the industry first established by French Huguenots arriving in east London in the 17th century moved out to East Anglia.