Flemish wool craftsmen, giving up on floods and war in their homeland, crossed the North Sea, encouraged by Edward III who was married to a Flemish princess. They went to Colchester, Ipswich and Norwich, spreading out to Hadleigh, Sudbury and Lavenham in Suffolk, and Coggeshall, Braintree, Dedham and Halstead in Essex. Here the wool industry flourished and churches funded and paid for by the wool merchants stand as a reminder of the importance of this trade.
The Suffolk Villages Festival, of which I was chairman for some eight years, is a festival of early music played on original instruments and during my tenure the wool churches of Boxford, Stoke by Nayland and Hadleigh were used as venues for concerts. To be in one of these villages on a summer's evening when the music making had been wonderful and the sun was going down, was one of life's perfect pleasures.
