In fact, for years Haverhill has been a cultural oasis in the desert of west Suffolk – just talk to people who try to organise arts events in Newmarket where it really is hard work.
It is no accident the town has an arts centre which is the envy of all the others around.
When St Edmundsbury looked at the fading town hall, which was losing the council loads of money, in the early 1990s officers needed advice about what to do with it and got an expert in to carry out a study.
He spoke to all the arts and voluntary organisations around here and concluded the town had such a lively cultural life it was worth spending what turned out to be over £1million to re-invent the place as an arts centre.
So culture and Haverhill are not the incongruous bedfellows which some of the more snobbish villages around it might like to make out.
You may not find a huge selection of classic literature on the shelves of the new WH Smith when it arrives, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least one representative from the pens of the Brontë sisters – probably Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights as both feature in the top ten of any poll.
I was reminded of the Brontës in a very curious way by last week's news – the pictures of the new Tesco, to be precise.
What could possibly be the connection? you ask, and I admit it is a bit fanciful.
As children, the Brontë sisters and their brother Branwell invented a glamorous world of their own, peopled by romantic heroes and heroines and based on the pictures of their time, particularly from the painter and engraver John Martin, whose Biblical epics were set against huge and grand townscapes.
The Brontës created Verdopolis, or Glasstown, where there were many similar buildings, up imposing flights of steps, but made primarily out of glass.
The artists' impression of our new Tesco store could, in many ways, have come straight out of Glasstown.
The 'public square' in front of it would have been the aim of a city planner of the early 19th century, and been reproduced through the Brontë children's feverish imaginations as a place where the people would gather to see and hear their dukes and politicians.
It is curious that, in an age when there is probably less sense of community around than ever before, planners and even residents should still hanker for the forms which were developed in such a different era.
We townspeople, the planners, Tesco's architects and everyone else conspire to try to create something impressive as a 'gateway' to the town.
At its centre is no longer a palace, a town hall, a cathedral or a parliament, but a shop.