Bury St Edmunds in the context of St Edmundsbury Cathedral

Suffolk (/ˈsʌfək/ SUF-ək) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement.

The county has an area of 3,798 km (1,466 sq mi) and had an estimated population of 786,231 in 2024. Ipswich is located in the south, and the county's other principal towns include Lowestoft in the north-east, Haverhill in the south-west, and Bury St Edmunds in the west. For local government purposes Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county with five districts.

Ipswich (/ˈɪpswɪtʃ/ ) is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, after Peterborough and Norwich. It is 65 miles (105 km) northeast of London and in 2011 had a population of 144,957. The Ipswich built-up area is the fourth-largest in the East of England and the 42nd-largest in England and Wales. It includes the towns and villages of Kesgrave, Woodbridge, Bramford and Martlesham Heath.

Ipswich was first recorded during the medieval period as Gippeswic, the town has also been recorded as Gyppewicus and Yppswyche. It has been continuously inhabited since the Saxon period, and is believed to be one of the oldest towns in the United Kingdom. The settlement was of great economic importance to the Kingdom of England throughout its history, particularly in trade, with the town's historical dock, Ipswich Waterfront, known as the largest and most important dock in the Kingdom.

London overspill communities were established as part of a government-led initiative to alleviate overcrowding in Greater London by relocating residents to other parts of England between the 1930s and 1970s. The earliest efforts focused on nearby areas in the South East, with the development of towns such as Harlow, Crawley, Basildon, and Stevenage. These initiatives were underpinned by the Greater London Plan of 1944, authored by Patrick Abercrombie, which proposed a ring of satellite towns beyond a newly defined Green Belt to decentralise population and industry.

From the 1950s, the scheme extended into East Anglia, where towns such as King's Lynn, Thetford, Haverhill, and Bury St Edmunds were expanded or redeveloped to accommodate Londoners. This regional inclusion aligned with the New Towns Act of 1946, which empowered the government to designate development areas and establish corporations to oversee their planning and growth. Peterborough, for instance, was designated a New Town in 1967 with a target population increase of 70,000.

Anonymous IV is the designation given to the writer of an important treatise of medieval music theory. He was probably an English student working at Notre Dame de Paris, most likely in the 1270s or 1280s. Nothing is known about his life. His writings survive in two partial copies from Bury St Edmunds; one from the 13th century, and one from the 14th.

Along with Johannes de Garlandia and Franco of Cologne, whose work precedes his, Anonymous IV's writings are the main source for understanding the Notre Dame school of polyphony. He wrote about Léonin and Pérotin, thereby assigning names to two of the composers of the music of the Notre Dame school who otherwise would have been anonymous. Léonin and Pérotin are among the earliest European composers whose names are known. Although they probably died at least fifty years earlier, he described them as still famous and part of the living tradition.

Clare is a market town and civil parish on the north bank of the River Stour in the West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England. Clare is in southwest Suffolk, 14 miles (23 km) from Bury St Edmunds and 9 miles (14 km) from Sudbury. Clare won Village of the Year in 2010 and Anglia in Bloom award for Best Large Village 2011 for its floral displays in 2011. In March 2015, The Sunday Times and Zoopla placed Clare amongst the top 50 UK rural locations, having "period properties and rich history without the chocolate-box perfection – and the coach trips". In 2011 it had a population of 2,028.

Clare and its vicinity has evidence of human habitation throughout prehistory, through the Norman Conquest, to the present day. Through the Anglo-Norman family de Clare, who took the name of this village, the name spread to other places and institutions such as County Clare in Ireland and Clare College, Cambridge.