Handyman Suffolk

Suffolk takes its name from the South Folk, the southern half of the old kingdom of East Anglia. The North Folk became Norfolk; the river Waveney still marks the line between them. The county has been farmed continuously for at least four thousand years, and its quiet hedged fields conceal one of the densest concentrations of medieval churches anywhere in Europe — more than five hundred parish churches, very many built on the back of the wool trade in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The county's coastline, soft and constantly retreating, has lost towns to the sea (Dunwich most famously) and has helped keep the interior unusually rural.

Modern Suffolk has Ipswich as its county town and largest urban area, with Bury St Edmunds, Lowestoft and Felixstowe as the next largest centres. The economy is a mixture of agriculture, engineering, port and logistics work around Felixstowe, financial services in Ipswich, the horseracing industry around Newmarket and a great deal of small-business and tourism activity across the rest. Constable, Gainsborough and Britten all came from here; so did Cardinal Wolsey and the present-day singer Ed Sheeran. Suffolk's particular character — slow rivers, pink-washed plaster, wide skies, a dry sense of humour — is something I never tire of, which is why I cover the whole county. There is no part of Suffolk I won't travel to for the right job.