STAYCATIONS – where people decide to holiday in Britain, and even close to home to keep costs down – are all the rage at present, so we took ourselves off to Suffolk.

The county has enormous appeal. There are pretty villages, gentle rolling scenery, quaint towns, lazy rivers and plenty of good country pubs.

Chuck in some reasonable weather, and you have the recipe for a rattling good holiday.

Our first stop was Newmarket, close to the racecourse which made this town famous.

We stayed at Bedford Lodge, an imposing hotel a short walk from the town centre.

From the hotel we could see racehorses being led along the road to the practice gallops.

In the town, there are numerous pubs and restaurants, as well as a national horseracing museum.

The museum traces the story of British racing from its early royal origins at Newmarket to the modern day, and visitors have the chance to ride a Ickworth House, near Bury St Edmunds: built by the eccentric Hervey family racehorse simulator.

We motored to the nearby West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village and Country Park, where a village from the period 420- 650AD has been excavated and carefully reconstructed.

Our next stop was the historic market town of Bury St Edmunds. In the Angel Hotel, our suite looked across the town’s main square to the splendid St Edmundsbury Cathedral.

Poor old King Edmund was captured and killed by the Danes in 869 AD, and promptly became a saint.

Legend has it that after his head was chopped off, it miraculously became reconnected with his body, setting off the whole St Edmund martyr-miracle-pilgrimage merry-go-round.

Keen to keep St Edmund’s memory alive, the locals built a great abbey to house the remains of the king.

Thwarted in his attempt to make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, one abbot, Anselm, instead built a church next door to the abbey in the 12th century.

This church became St Edmundsbury Cathedral in 1914, and we walked down the nave which was built by Tudor architect John Wastell, whose works include King’s College, Cambridge. Almost 50 years of work on the cathedral was completed in 2005, and has resulted in an imposing Millennium Tower, a complete rebuilding of the east end of the cathedral, and a new porch and cloisters.

Bury St Edmunds also boasts a rather super Regency playhouse, the Theatre Royal.

Built in 1809, it reopened in 2007 after a major restoration programme.

It was only a short drive along the A143 from Bury to the sleepy village of Horringer, which is home to Ickworth House, home of the historic and eccentric Hervey (pronounced Harvey) family.

Set in 1,500 acres of grounds, which seem to go on forever, the house is a giant rotunda, stack full of paintings, and has been under the care of the National Trust since 1956.

The family are also associated with the Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry, and it was the 4th Earl of Bristol who created Ickworth in 1795. Latterday celebrities in the family include the model and socialite Lady Victoria Hervey.

It was once said: ‘When God created the human race, he made men, women and Herveys.’ Bury St Edmunds is handily placed for a seaside trip to Aldeburgh, a jolly town where we enjoyed a chilly, but bracing, walk along the seafront.

There are restaurants close to the sea in a resort that has not changed much since the days of the UK bucket-andspade holiday.

This is “big sky” country and the wide, open spaces were particularly apparent to us at the nearby Maltings at Snape.

Formerly used for the malting of barley, the Maltings’ buildings include a concert hall used for the Aldeburgh Festival, as well as arts and crafts shops and restaurants.

Travel facts - Suffolk

● Peter Woodman stayed at Bedford Lodge, Newmarket. Reservations on 01638-663175 and bedfordlodgehotel.co.uk, and in Bury St Edmunds at The Angel, reservations 01284-714000 and theangel.co.uk.

● Spring is best, when the grass is greenest and the days long.

● Don’t forget: walking shoes – the flat countryside offers some terrific walks.