The Suffolk-Essex border

You’ve already seen a picture of the Essex-Suffolk border. Assuming you’ve seen Constable’s ‘The Haywain’, that is: the Stour (the river into which the farmer has cleverly driven his cart) forms the county boundary, meaning the land on the left is Suffolk, that on the right, Essex. Years of David Beckham and jokes about girls in white stilettos had rather inclined me against Essex, so when I moved to Suffolk it was galling to discover I had a Colchester postcode. Only gradually did I realise how well the two counties work together.

This part of the world is beautifully untrendy — it’s on the way to nowhere other than the North Sea, so, unlike the Cotswolds, we are spared invasion by tourist coaches. Flatford Mill (home of ‘The Haywain’) is at the eastern end of the boundary. Further inland are the villages of Nayland and Polstead, both of which feature in Ruth Rendell stories. The author was born in Essex — an early job on the Chigwell Times ended when she filed a story about an event she hadn’t attended, failing to mention that the after-dinner speaker had died in the middle of the speech. But she finished up as Baroness Rendell of Babergh, a Suffolk area whose name goes back to the Domesday Book. Her grave is there, admirably modest (just her name and dates).

The town of Sudbury is where the dogs in 101 Dalmatians pause during their journey from London, on a mission to rescue the kidnapped colleagues who have been brought to Suffolk for skinning. Dodie Smith owned several dogs of that breed herself, and got the idea for the story when a friend said they ‘would make a lovely fur coat’.