Welcome to Shimpling Village

Shimpling is in the district of Babergh and Mid Suffolk (BMSDC) and lies south of Bury St. Edmunds by about 7 miles, and north of Sudbury by about 6 miles. It lies on the western edge of the BMSDC area on the boundary with West Suffolk District. Lawshall lies to the north, Alpheton and Long Melford to the south and east, and Hartest and Stansted to the west.

Shimpling is an ancient, agricultural landscape. Bronze age finds and ancient earthworks indicate people have been living here for thousands of years, making use of the water supply from the Chad Brook, and the plentiful supply of wood that would have been present in past centuries. It was known as ‘Shimplingthorne’ in times past and still features ancient remnants of woodlands and hints of a medieval deer park. Shimpling retains a strong connection with farming and agricultural development, and Park Farm is a showcase for organic farming and education in Suffolk today.

Shimpling lies across a rolling, shallow valley landscape, focused around the Chad Brook- part of the headwaters of what will develop into the River Stour. Lowest lying land forming a shallow trough through the centre and west of the parish. The rest of the area is gently sloping and gently rolling valleyside, with the northern edges of the parish rising towards the plateau. The rolling topography is a key part of the parish’s scenic distinctiveness.

Latest Parish Information:

Scam ALERT 02/10/2026

The Parish Council has just been made aware of a potential phishing/scam attempt by email involving impersonation of councillors. 

If you have received an odd or unexpected email message in the last day or two which seems to come from one of the Parish Councillors, please do not reply to it or click any links or open any attachments. 

Genuine emails from parish councillors will have an email address that ends in @shimpling-pc.gov.uk 

If the message you have received does not contain this then is is fake and in all likelihood a scam. 

This appears to be a scam becoming more frequent in the UK in which someone claiming to be a parish councillor will ask for money, gift cards or vouchers to be sent to them to be used for parish purposes. 

Please be assured that we will never under any circumstances ask you to do anything like this at all and therefore any such request is clearly fraudulent. 

Please can you let me know of any emails that you might receive so that we can consider appropriate next steps, which may involve contacting the police. 

Thank you all very much. As ever please just contact the PC if you have any queries or have received a message you’re not sure about. 

Don’t forget you can also ask any of our resident tech experts in the tech thread if you’re not sure about a message you may have received.  

Thanks for your kind attention: do be careful out there! 

Community Noticeboard - monthly updates of useful offers, grants and projects of interest to residents

Our latest village development: Shimpling Tech Support

Village Hall Events:

Click here for more information about Village Hall events 

Village Survey - review the Survey Results Boards here.

More information on developing the Shimpling Neighbourhood Plan can be found here.