Polstead is a pretty Stour-valley village of colour-washed cottages round a pond, with a Norman church on the hill and orchards spread around it. Its darker fame is the Red Barn Murder of 1827, when William Corder shot Maria Marten here; the case became a national sensation, retold in ballads and plays for a century after. The barn is long gone. Stoke-by-Nayland is close by.
