EYEWITNESSES have told how paramedics made a desperate attempt to revive a man who suffered a suspected heart attack outside a town centre hotel.

The man, who was in his 50s, died on the water meadows close to the Mill Hotel in Sudbury, on Tuesday.

Paramedics were alerted about the man’s collapse, off Walnut Tree Lane, at 3.20pm.

Half an hour later, the police were informed by the ambulance service that there had been a death in a public place and that the Coroner’s Office should be informed.

An eyewitness who lives in the area, who asked not to be identified, told she saw paramedics desperately trying to revive the man using resuscitation techniques.

“They were working for a long time,” the woman said. “There were quite a few people there and then a trailer arrived to take him off the meadow.”

A spokeswoman for the East of England Ambulance Service said: “We had a notification that he was in cardiac arrest. It was a man in his 50s who was in a field at the front of a property.

“We tried to revive him but without success. We stayed at the scene until the coroner’s staff and the police were present.”

A police spokeswoman said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the man’s death.

She said: “The coroner was called and the family was notified.”

It remains unclear whether the man was local to the area.

The town’s water meadows are a popular recreation area for residents and visitors and are managed for their wetland flora and fauna.

They have the longest recorded history of continuous grazing in East Anglia, and were listed as water meadows in the Domesday survey of 1086.

The site includes grasslands rich in flora, important wetland wildlife habitats and has connections both with the local medieval textile industry and with the painter Thomas Gainsborough, who grew up in Sudbury.