Suffolk Cottage Holidays Ltd, incorporating Big House Holidays, is a highly successful holiday property letting agency managing around 150 cottages and large houses in East Anglia. Letting high quality properties with a year round occupancy, the company is frequently the first port of call for investors seeking capital growth.

Lizzie Hammond, a director of Suffolk Cottage Holidays Ltd examines the pros and cons of holiday property investment in the present uncertain financial market.

Full of character and interest both to the holidaymaker and the historian, Southwold is one of the most popular resorts on the East coast. But be warned you won't find much in the way of candyfloss or ‘'kiss me quick'’ hats. Perhaps it is its virtual island status - Southwold is surrounded by creeks, marshes and reed beds and flanked to the south by the Blyth estuary - but to enter Southwold is to enter a seaside resort reminiscent of the 1920s.

The quiet understated elegance of its Georgian houses, its 100 foot lighthouse towering above the Sole Bay Inn, its

Arriving at Framlingham Castle today we see the extensive remains of a magnificent 12th century stone enclosure. Built by Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and influential member of the court of Henry II, the castle, together with the Mere, was designed both as a stronghold and as a symbol of power and status.

Of course it is possible when renting a holiday cottage to do a ‘Tesco drop’ and arrange for your shopping to arrive once you have settled in. But why not stop off briefly en route at a local farm shop and suss out what Suffolk producers can offer you? It could be fun and you’ll probably discover things you’ll want to go back for another time.

There is some indefinable otherness about Aldeburgh; perhaps it is the contrast between the middle class gentility of the town and the elemental power of the sea as it grasps and throws back the sand and shingle which make up the long, sometimes steeply shelving beach, or maybe it is the fantastic Suffolk skies, the clouds skudding across an azure sky, the deserted marshes peppered with the skeletons of long abandoned boats.

There were nine mills in Woodbridge at the time that Buttrum’s brick tower mill was built in the 1830s. Now only two working mills remaining, Buttrum’s Mill and The Tide Mill, a visit to either is a fascinating experience. Both are in excellent order and can even see the flour being ground at Buttrums and purchase the result.

Buttrums Mill