Handyman Babergh

Babergh is one of the two southern districts of Suffolk, named after a now-vanished medieval hundred. It was created in 1974 when the old urban and rural districts of Sudbury, Hadleigh, Cosford and Melford were merged into a single authority. The district takes in some of the loveliest landscape in eastern England: the broad Stour valley along the Essex border, the gentle Brett valley up to Hadleigh, and the rolling clay country between. This is Constable Country — the villages of East Bergholt, Flatford, Stoke-by-Nayland and Dedham (just over the Essex border) gave the painter his most famous subjects, and the views he committed to canvas are still recognisable today.

Sudbury, on the western edge, is the district's largest town and administrative centre. Hadleigh, Lavenham, Long Melford, Clare and Bures are the other main settlements; in between them lies a patchwork of smaller villages, many of them with timber-framed houses, splendid wool-trade churches and old greens. Agriculture remains important, particularly arable farming on the heavier clays, but Babergh's economy now leans heavily on tourism, small businesses and commuting toward Ipswich, Colchester and London. The district shares back-office services with Mid Suffolk to its north. I cover Babergh in its entirety — from the Stour valley villages to the high lanes north of Hadleigh — and a great deal of the work I'm called out for here involves looking after older, listed properties with the care they deserve.