Handyman Saxmundham

Saxmundham — usually shortened by locals to 'Sax' — is a quiet old market town that has seen more bustle in the past than it does today. The town's market charter was granted in 1272, and for centuries it was an important stop on the road from Ipswich to Yarmouth. The arrival of the East Suffolk Railway in 1859 pulled trade towards the new station and gradually shifted the centre of gravity, but the High Street still curves with an elegant series of Georgian and Victorian shopfronts.

The parish church of St John the Baptist sits at the south end of town, with a fine medieval tower; opposite it is a row of timber-framed cottages that survived later rebuilding. A bronze memorial near the centre commemorates Benjamin Britten, who frequently passed through on his way from London to Aldeburgh. Saxmundham serves as a service town for a wide rural hinterland: Friston, Kelsale, Snape, Yoxford and many other small villages all use Sax for shopping, schooling and the post office. Recent housing development on the edges of town has expanded the population without much altering the centre. The proximity to the coast, the Snape Maltings and the RSPB at Minsmere makes Saxmundham an unusually well-connected base for a small town. Older properties tend to be modest cottages of brick and lath; my work here is mostly carpentry, windows and the slow upkeep of homes that have been gently lived in for a century or more.