Suffolk : local, characterful guides to Britain's special places

Suffolk represents quintessential East Anglia, a region that has locally distinctive architectural styles, regional accents, scenery, culture and climate.

The county, which is low-lying but by no means flat, has some of its best scenery along the coast: a soft, dreamy landscape of river estuaries, remote marshes, reed-beds, beaches, shingle banks, sand spits and dunes.

Elsewhere in the county can be found undulating farmland, sandy heaths, shady river banks and extensive forests.

The area also has much appeal to visitors for its manmade heritage: the distinctive rural architecture of the Stour Valley (with its Constable painting associations) on the Suffolk-Essex border, the ancient town of Bury St Edmunds, the great country houses with their estates, ancient thatched churches hidden away from view and unspoiled market towns.

Suffolk is also well known for its Anglo-Saxon heritage - the royal ceremonial burial site at Sutton Hoo and the reconstructed Anglo-Saxon village at West Stow.