Handyman Stowmarket

Stowmarket grew up on the line between Ipswich and Bury at a point where the Gipping made the land slightly easier. The market charter dates from the thirteenth century and the parish church of St Peter and St Mary is medieval in origin, though the spire is a Victorian replacement after the original was struck by lightning. The Stowmarket Navigation, completed in 1793, briefly turned the town into an inland port, with barges working the canalised Gipping all the way to Ipswich. Industries followed: corn milling, malting, brewing, explosive manufacturing and the great Glasgow Iron Works, which kept the town busy through the nineteenth century.

The Museum of East Anglian Life, an open-air museum spread over seventy acres along the river, is the town's cultural jewel. Old farm buildings, watermills, a Tudor hall and a working smithy have been brought together to tell the story of regional rural life, and it is deservedly popular. The high street has been pedestrianised and offers a well-judged mix of chain stores and independent traders. Stowmarket's railway station sits on the Great Eastern Main Line, which gives the town a fast commuter link to Ipswich and London Liverpool Street and has fuelled a lot of recent housing growth on the southern and western edges. The mix of older terraces near the centre and new-build estates on the outskirts means there's a steady stream of varied work for any handyman.