Lavenham

Crooked Frames and Wool Wealth

The Crooked House stands at 7 High Street, built in 1395 and leaning at an angle that looks like a structural fault but is really just what happens when green oak dries out over six centuries. Country Life called it "one of the world's most photographed homes" in 2022. It is one of more than three hundred listed timber-framed buildings here, many painted in the pinkish wash known as Suffolk pink, and the reason the whole place has been described as the most complete medieval town in Britain is fairly simple: the town went broke and stayed broke, and nobody could afford to knock anything down.

You notice the church before you reach it. St Peter and St Paul has a tower 138 feet high, knapped flint and stone in four stages, which claims to be the tallest village church tower in the country. It was paid for by the wool money — chiefly John de Vere, the 13th Earl of Oxford, and a clothier called Thomas Spring III, whose merchant's mark is carved into the outside more than thirty times. When you have paid for that much of a church, you are allowed to sign it.

Historic Inns and the Airmen's Bar

For drinking there is a decent choice. The Greyhound, a Grade II listed inn on the High Street, dates to 1324, when it was the town gaol; it was certainly a pub by 1730, and keeps a regular and a changing ale plus a snug and a hidden garden. The Cock Horse, opposite the church, is thatched with a stone floor and a beamed bar, and pours real ales and fine wines beside the car park. The Angel, first licensed in 1420 and the oldest inn in the village, closed in March 2025.

The grandest option is the Swan, a four-star hotel and spa built into former medieval buildings, with a two-rosette restaurant. Its Luxe Lunch runs £24.50 for two courses, and you can eat in the Gallery under oak beams and chandeliers or more casually in Mess Call 487. It also has the Airmen's Bar, named for the American servicemen of the 487th Bombardment Group, who flew B-17s out of RAF Lavenham and drank here through the war. Their squadron badges are still on the walls.

Bakery, Butcher and Café

Food shopping is better than the population of 1,722 would suggest. Sparling & Faiers, on the Market Place, was voted the most loved bakery in East Anglia in 2015; a bakery has stood on the spot since the 17th century and the Hovis sign outside is over a hundred years old. Lavenham Butchers sells venison shot in the fields around the village, which is about as local as meat gets. Chilly and Chives does lunches and cakes.

The Railway Walk to Long Melford

The best walk follows the old railway line to Long Melford, closed to passengers in 1961 and now a footpath and nature reserve — nearly ten miles of trackbed, field paths and green lanes, with treecreepers and bullfinches along the cutting. There is no station now; you come by the A1141, five miles from Sudbury.

Six Shillings and a Nursery Rhyme

The Domesday surveyors valued the whole place at six shillings. Jane Taylor, who grew up here, wrote "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."