While you are here you could pop into the centre of Hadleigh for a coffee and bite to eat and wander along the old High Street, marvel at its beautiful old buildings and eclectic mix of shops, services, restaurants, cafe's and pubs that are known for their individuality, quality and care.
Hadleigh is an ancient market town full of character and history, set in the lush and fertile valley of the River Brett. Once an immensely wealthy wool and cloth town, the manor of Hadleigh was given to the Priory of Canterbury Cathedral in the 13th century meaning it was under direct control of the Archbishop of Canterbury for hundreds of years.
It retains many of the 15th-century brick and timber framed buildings that Suffolk is famous for and has no less than 246 listed buildings; four of them Grade 1:The Guildhall, St Mary's Church, the Deanery Tower and the Coffee Tavern in the High Street, where you can see beautifully detailed 17th century decorative plasterwork or 'pargeting'.
The town lies in the heart of Constable Country, so called because it produced two of our most famous artists; John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough, who were born and lived nearby and whose paintings celebrate the beauty of our big Suffolk skies and idyllic countryside.
Twentieth-century artist Cedric Morris also spent forty years in Hadleigh. A post-impressionist and pioneering gardener, he founded the rebellious East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing with fellow painter and sculptor Arthur Lett-Haines whose students included Lucian Freud and locally raised Maggi Hambling.