We were all packed up and left the Wagon Store by 9.00. It was a great base for our stay in Southwold and we left a thank-you message for Sue and Eric. It wasn’t until we drove down to the harbour to get a crab from Samantha K to take home that we realised how stormy the sea was. We were surprised to still see hardy bathers …
Anyway, Chris was in his element taking photos, and talking to strangers (hello Clare!) but eventually we had to get on the road.
We did make one stop, for a coffee at the Maltings in Snape as being so close, we felt we ought to look round. Once used to malt barley for the brewing of beer, the Maltings became redundant in the 1960’s and Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears converted the largest malthouse into a concert hall. This gave a permanent home to the famous Aldeburgh Festival of classical music which is held each June and later additional buildings were converted into a centre to educate and support young musicians. Today there is a collection of shops, galleries and restaurants which we wandered round. We saw an underwhelming exhibit by Maggi Hamling, and some rather swanky shops selling goods that wouldn’t have been out of place in Liberty’s or Fortnums and had coffee and some delicious cake.
Well this is the end … just the drive home now so fingers crossed that the A12 and M25 will be kind to us … until next time!
We awoke to the first really overcast day since we arrived, a shame as I really wanted to take a good photo of the town from the pier and it would have looked so much better with blue sky … maybe tomorrow!
While there, we noticed the two small shops on the pier were open for the first time and a souvenir was successfully chosen … a fish to decorate the kitchen and remind us of our holiday.
Walking seemed a perfect choice for the day so we went to Old Hall Farm which advertise a cafe and walk. They also advertise a maize maze, but unfortunately that doesn’t open until tomorrow! We started with lunch and munched through crab salad and a lentil burger … and more chips … after all we are on holiday … and we did then work some of it off with a 4 mile walk. The path took us through a meadow down to a area of reedbeds, fens, dykes and pools created in 1999 to provide new breeding habitat for bittern and other wildlife.
Most of the birds which nest in the reeds have already fledged this year, but we watched activity round a pond from a hide … until they got spooked and all flew away!
At times, all we could hear was the rustling sound of the breeze blowing through the reeds but later the distant sounds of Latitude carried on the wind, and we were quite pleased to be here alone rather than sharing a field with 40,000 others 5 miles away in Henham Park.
The path continued along the line of mudflats where we spotted several feeding waders – egrets, oyster catchers and curlew as well as shelduck and lots of black headed gulls …
… before returning through fields to Old Hall.
Well here we are, our last evening in Southwold … what to do … how to go out with a bang? What had been a pretty overcast day turned into a sunny evening so we packed up supper and took it to the beach. We returned to the same stretch of beach we had enjoyed on our first day here and went prepared for it to be a little chilly.
Surprisingly, once we found a sheltered spot and rigged up the windbreak, it wasn’t chilly at all and we feasted on gourmet cheese from Slate …
Firstly Baron Bigod, “an exquisite soft brie-style cheese made in Suffolk at Fen Farm Dairy near Bungay where Jonny and Dulcie Crickmore use the raw rich milk from their Montbéliarde cows to handmake this gold medal winning cheese to a traditional French recipe. The taste is delicate at its centre with yoghurt acidity. Towards its white bloomy rind, which develops over eight weeks of salting and aging, the flavour becomes creamier and richer with aromas of earth and mushroom.”
And then Suffolk Blue “a luxuriously creamy lightly blue-veined cheese handmade at Whitegate Farm in Creeting St Mary, Suffolk where husband and wife team Katharine and Jason Salisbury, have installed a robotic milking system for their herd of Guernsey and Jersey cows. The rich pasteurised milk from these cows gives their cheeses a delightful buttery flavour. Katharine adds Penicillium Roqueforti spores to her Suffolk Blue curds then pierces the cheeses after a week to encourage veining.”
Cheese was served with slices of ripe rocha pears and Nairn rough oatcakes and paired with Adnams Ghost Ship, “a spooky citrus pale ale which takes its inspiration from Adnams 600-year-old haunted pub, The Bell in Walberswick where we had coffee on our first day here. It is brewed with Pale Ale, Rye Crystal and Cara malts and has Citra and a blend of other American hop varieties to create some great citrus flavours.” Made into shandy, this complemented our last supper perfectly … yum!
It was a wonderful end to a fabulous week in Southwold … such a shame that Desni had other plans!
This morning we took a footpath which follows Buss Creek, a water channel that leads to the River Blythe. The name is thought to have come from seagoing Dutch and Flemish sailing craft called busses that used to be used for herring fishing. The path was raised above the creek on a dyke and we had a good view across the fields to the old wind pump tower.
We saw a man taking a mower for a walk …
… and more men repairing the Bailey bridge which carries the footpath to Walberswick …
… and saw an egret in the shallows.
On to the Harbour pub, an Adnams house, as are all the pubs in Southwold, and Chris stepped up to the crease and had a pint of Breakpoint, a farmhouse pale ale, in which land and sea collide!
Southwold’s brewing history began with the ale wives of the 14th century, constantly in trouble with the law for various infringements when beer was the everyday drink since water was often polluted. By the 17th century, most prominent names of Southwold had a hand in brewing. In 1825 the brew-house at the back of the Old Swan inn was sold and re-built as the Sole Bay Brewery which later changed hands several times before being bought by the Adnams brothers from Berkshire in 1872. George Adnams got bored with country life, left for Africa and was eaten by a crocodile, but his brother Ernest stayed and converted Adnams into a limited company. Verging on insolvency by 1902, it was rescued by P C Loftus, an experienced brewer, who acquired a stake, reorganised the company and turned things around. Its survival was again at risk in the 1960’s as consolidation of the brewing industry and development of keg beer threatened. Fortunately a new generation on the family and the revival of real ale by CAMRA helped secure their future. Today Adnams has a huge presence in Southwold with the brewery, umpteen pubs with dining, and a shop not just selling their own huge range of beer, but also other diversification including their various distilled spirits and collaborations which bring Adnams branded worldwide wines as well.
From there, it was across the town marshes which have been managed for centuries as grazing marshes, using an elaborate system of dykes which drain out to the River Blythe at low tide. Water levels are raised during the winter, ready for the breeding season in the spring, lowered in the summer so fields can be harvested for hay and when cattle return to farms in the autumn, grass is left at an ideal height for wintering birds.
Then across the common and golf course, and through the back paths.
As we returned to Reydon, I took a snap of the village sign. We’ve enjoyed looking out for these signs, usually in a prominent place, but not always easy to photograph, so here is a small collection we passed on foot! The meanings of some are obvious like the Battle of Sole Bay for Southwold and the House in the Clouds and Windmill for Thorpeness. Others are a little more complicated! Reydon comes from Rye on the Hill, hence the sheafs, also for agriculture, the oaks which grow well here. The central cross and cogwheel depict the importance of the church and blacksmith in village life and the brick wall is for strength and solidarity. Kessingland, which being on the east coast is one of the first places the sun touches at dawn also has the three crowns of East Anglia. The shield with a ship’s wheel and bell can all be found in the local church and the rest relate to agriculture and the sea
In the afternoon, we drove down to the Pier and took advantage of a sunny afternoon for a little more beach time as it might be cloudy tomorrow. It was a little blowy, but we found a sheltered corner, and I even went in for a dip.
Later we went along the pier to find out more about the Under The Pier show, a quirky amusement arcade with a difference. There are no slot machines or noisy electronics, instead a bunch of interactive machines made by Tim Hunkin – you can walk a dog, have your head examined, go on a package holiday or take a trip under the pier. We thought we’d have a go, but it was all a bit busy so we gave it a miss.
He also made the Quantum Tunneling Telescope at the end of the pier which in theory allows the viewer to see something a little more exciting than just the horizon, except unfortunately it wasn’t working quite as it should when we had a go.
We had dinner at The Sail Loft, and felt pleased we’d thought to book ahead when we saw crowds being turned away. We had a lovely dinner featuring hummus, half a pint of prawns, Goan pork curry and a beetroot and falafel burger … with chips of course! The sun was low in the sky as we left … perfect for a few pics on the way back.
The small village of Thorpeness was next, and we had read a little about it being a fantasy holiday village, and it sounded a little like Portmeiron. It was the dream of Stuart Ogilvie who bought the hamlet in 1910 and built holiday homes in mock Jacobean and Tudor styles, a country club with golf course and swimming pool and invited his friends and colleagues to spend their holidays here. The village is dominated by the Meare, a shallow boating lake which was designed with landings and inlets for children to explore, named after places in Peter Pan as J.M. Barrie who was a family friend. It is still popular today, but rowing looked too much like hard work, so we didn’t explore and find the Pirates’s Lair, Wendy’s House or the crocodile!
We had a wander and saw the Almshouses …
… and saw Ermintrude, who at 92 is the oldest bus in Britain in regular work, and runs between Aldeburgh and Thorpeness in the summer …
… and a variety of houses.
Nothing was allowed to spoil the fantasy, so Ogilvie replaced the ugly metal pump which drew water from the well with a relocated windmill ….
… and found a whimsical way to conceal the water tower, transforming it into The House in the Clouds, now available as an unusual holiday let as the village got mains water in 1963.
We walked back along the beach, yet another shingle beach, although this was beautiful golden sand when Ogilvie started his village in 1910. I guess this might be the case with many of the beaches along this stretch of coast as sand seems a little sparse these days, with Southwold beaches being the sandiest.
Thorpeness remained mostly in family ownership until 1972 when Ogilvie’s grandson died and much of the village was sold off to pay death duties.
I had been reading about Dunwich and realised that we hadn’t actually visited the village and beach the other day, so we stopped on the way back. Dunwich was once a thriving medieval port and capital of the kingdom of East Anglia and is another casualty of the coastal erosion and storms in Suffolk which have washed most of it away. We walked along the cliff path, keeping well away from the edge and saw the last remaining grave from the church …
… and the ruins of Greyfriars, once a monastery with a similar tale to Leiston, dissolution and conversion to a country house, but this was later demolished and it’s been left as a ruin.
There was far less breeze today so we stopped at the beach for a bit. I even thought I would swim, but I got in so far, spotted a couple of jellyfish and beat a hasty retreat, and resigned myself to playing in the sand and sitting in the sun!
With the sun still shining, it was Mojito time and Chris remains Uno champ then more deli treats and a little bulgar wheat salad made with our first runner beans of the year spotted in the greengrocer in town.
Today we went to Aldeburgh to explore, just 17 miles down the coast. We parked at the end of the town beside the sculpture Scallop which is dedicated to the composer Benjamin Britten who lived here and walked along the beach in the afternoons. It was created from stainless steel by Maggi Hambling with words from Britten’s cheery nautical opera Peter Grimes pierced through it. It has caused controversy since it’s unveiling in 2003, has been vandalised many times and had petitions for both its removal and retention. We couldn’t see what the fuss was about, and thought it interesting to walk round and catch from difference angles.
We walked into the town, past fishing boats pulled up on the shingle and fishing sheds selling fish of all sorts and smoked fish too.
In the centre is the Tudor Moot Hall, which was the town hall for centuries and now houses the museum.
We had coffee at the Two Magpies Bakery in the High Street, then continued through the town back to the sea wall.
We could see the Martello tower in distance, apparently a unique quatrefoil tower and the largest of the 103 towers built to resist a threatened Napoleonic invasion. It is the only surviving building of the fishing village of Slaughden, which was washed away by the sea by 1936.
We walked back along the front, admiring the colourful houses, many available as holiday lets …
… and I have never seen such an amazing collection of hollyhocks in bloom, brightening up every garden.
Halfway up, a sign encouraged us to add a stone to The Angel of the East …
… so I did, with purple writing at the bottom of the photo!
Walking back past the fish sheds, I stopped at the Aldeburgh Smokehouse and picked up an Aldeburgh Noon Tart for lunch – a crispy tart filled with creamy smoked haddock and smoked cheddar.
Chris had a Moroccan empanada in his pocket from the Two Magpies so we sat on a bench overlooking the Scallop, happily munching.
This morning we began with a foraging trip, firstly to Samantha K’s at the harbour for fish. They have two boats, Laura K and Emma H and one goes out for crabs, lobster and shellfish, and the other for white fish which they sell in their shop daily, as well as smoked fish from Lowestoft’s oldest smoke house. I purchased a dressed crab, one of my absolute favourites and also a smoked mackerel.
We then headed back into town and were lucky to find a parking space. We did a little deli hopping and picked up a mixture of pies and some local cheese in Slate, a little quiche and a pot of mixed salads in the Black Olive and some beer and wine in Adnams. We returned to put it all in the fridge, had coffee then set out to the National Trust site at Dunwich where various walking routes lead through the heathland bordering the coast. As we arrived, we realised there was an added bonus as there were swathes of bright purple bell heather in bloom.
In fact, this whole area is covered in common heather and must be stunning in August when it flowers. We could see Southwold to the north and Sizewell to the south.
We had a walk in the heather …
… then wandered down to the beach but decided not to sit as it was quite blowy without a windbreak. We had an ice cream and decided to drive closer to Sizewell, to try and take a better picture, and we but wondered if it was a bit like morbid curiosity to be wanting to photograph a nuclear power station, however architectural it was!
The B road wasn’t particularly wide, with some nasty turns and we started seeing protest signs. We had already seen a sign in a house window in Southwold about the proposed building of Sizewell C.
EDF say it will generate enough electricity for 7% of the UK’s needs, creating over 5,000 local jobs during the 9 year construction. Local opposition groups claim the project will damage important wildlife habitats, not to mention the disruption during construction and the cost of £20bn, but the final decision is yet to be made.
We were able to get far closer than we would have expected, and parked beside Sizewell beach and took a walk. The juxtaposition of the nuclear power station, and people walking and swimming just seemed incongruous.
Yet more ruins on the way home as we passed Leiston Abbey, but in this case it was Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries to blame rather than coastal erosion! Since then it has been used as a farm, converted to a Georgian house, been a religious retreat and now is home to a trust who train chamber musicians.
Later we made up a couple of small plates with some leftovers, potato salad and the deli goodies and sat in the garden.
We headed north up the A22 to explore, stopping first at Kessingland from which we could see as far as Lowestoft, the most easterly settlement in England. Marram grass was planted behind the beach in the 1900s by Henry Rider Haggard who had a holiday home here and it has reduced erosion.
A stop for a walk and coffee and we drove back to Covehithe and parked behind others at the side of a lane. Covehithe was a thriving community with a wealth to rival Lowestoft in the 14th century when St Andrews church was built. Later the river silted up, the population dwindled and the church fell into disrepair and was pulled down except for the tower, and the stone used to build a smaller church within the ruins which has been in use since 1672.
Then we made our way about a mile down the footpath to the beach, past a field of pigs, having a lovely time in a muddy puddle.
Needless to say, with more effort required to reach it and no facilities, there were few visitors. We could see Southwold about 3 miles away, although the beach between the two is only passable at low tide due to bad erosion and even the Suffolk coastal path takes a more inland route here.
We sat for a while and ate our sandwiches, then chilled, listening to the waves breaking.
We returned to Southwold in time to shower and walk to Coasters for dinner, having booked a table for 6pm. We had a fabulous meal of crayfish and local pork for me and blue cheese and walnut pate then veggie gnocchi for Chris, all washed down with a very nice dry French white.
Having decided it was a bit too far to comfortably walk to the beach with stuff, we loaded up the car and drove to a beachside car park where for a fiver, we could park all day. Deciding to explore first, we followed the ferry path behind the beach in Southwold with views across the marshes to the common and the golf course. It led to the estuary of the River Blythe which has Southwold on one side and Walberswick on the other. We explored a little …
… then bought a ticket for the ferry which has been run by the Church family since 1885.
Walberswick has been a favourite venue and inspiration for artists since the beginning of the 19th century and I was interested to read that a friend invited Charles Rennie Mackintosh here. He came to recharge his batteries and arrived with his wife in 1914 as war broke out. He worked on drawings and watercolours, mainly near the river but restrictions were introduced near the coast and artists working en plein air were regarded with suspicion. That didn’t stop him walking in the evening with a forbidden lantern and what with his connection with the Viennese Secession, rumour started and he was arrested for signalling to the enemy and banished from East Anglia for the duration of the war.
We stopped for a coffee, walked into the centre with just a couple of shops and an ice cream parlour and saw people crabbing off the bridge and enjoying the beach before returning to Southwold.
This part of the harbour is called Blackshore as the coal was once unloaded here, and it’s home to a strip of fish shops and cafes which were already open and busy serving lunch. We had to be a little careful, as several fry authentically in beef dripping, but Mrs T had a sign advertising rapeseed oil and Chris tucked into veggie spring rolls with his chips while I had cod … always tasting better at the seaside.
Replete, we walked back to the car and picked our kit and had just a short walk over the road to the beach.
It had got quite warm, so we were pleased for the parasol, just for a while, as we watched the world go by. I’ve been doing a sewing challenge and brought this week’s project with me to stitch on the beach.
We were thinking back to the last time each of us had been on a proper beach holiday in England and we both decided it was when we were around 10 years old. Chris was vague with details, but I remember Woolacombe and Bude in 1973! That might even have been the last time I got in the sea in England too … so braved a dip … and when I realised how cold it was, knew why I’d left it so long! Chris managed little more than a paddle, but did get his swimmers wet!
Continuing in the spirit of the day, Chris had bought me a bucket and spade in the little shop, carefully chosen for its slightly retro styling and eco credentials – no sharp edges and 100% recycled! I now set to work on a stunning edifice, with a central mound, and decorative stonework on the turrets!
Time for a bit of a time out …
Later we packed up, left everything in the car and went in search of ice cream. We walked up Gun Hill which looks out over the beach and Sole Bay. Southwold was headquarters for the English fleet in 1672 and they were attacked by the Dutch in the famously well-known Battle of Sole Bay. They fought all day with about 2000 men were killed on each side, then the Dutch sailed home at sunset after a well-fought draw.
We chose lemon curd and rum & raisin and sat on South Green, surrounded by elegant seaside villas to eat them before returning to the Wagon Store.
Happy with a quiet evening in, we sat in the garden and cracked open the prosecco then had an easy dinner of spiced beans and salad.
We had a good drive to Suffolk, with just a few holdups on the last stretch. Chris surprised me with a comfort stop on the way, at the Anglo Saxon royal burial site at Sutton Hoo. We had seen a film called The Dig recently, all about the excavation in the 1930’s and the discovery of precious artefacts inside. These are now in the British Museum, but replicas are on show including the intricate helmet, as part of an exhibition which suggests the burial could have been for King Rædwald of East Anglia
Outside is a replica of the 27 metre long Anglo-Saxon ship which was made of oak and after 1,300 years in the acidic soil, rotted away leaving only its ‘ghost’ imprinted in the sand.
We walked to the burial site where all that can be seen are some mounds in the grass, the best way to preserve whatever remains.
We headed coastwards to Southwold and found the Wagon Store, a one bedroom bungalow in Reydon which will be our home from home for a week. It has been beautifully fitted out and well equippped, not to mention thoughtful little touches to make us feel welcome.
After a cuppa we walked to the pier which took about 20 minutes. It was early evening and the light made taking a few photos a joy. The pier was built in 1900 to enable steamships dock with visitors from London, a journey that took 11 hours.
One of the features is the water clock, originally meant to be temporary but now much-loved and made of old hot water cylinders, with water regularly overflowing from the bath to water the garden.
There is also the wacky walk of mirrors …
… and a mural celebrating George Orwell who lived here.
We could see Sizewell nuclear power station in the distance.
At the end of the pier we looked back at the sandy beach, lined with beach huts backed with Victorian villas and the lighthouse peeking out behind. Southwold was already attracting visitors at the beginning of the 19th century, but by the end it was a busy resort with three new hotels, a railway station and steamer service.
In North Parade we got a bit closer to the lighthouse which was built in 1897 to reduce the number of wrecks in Sole Bay.
… before cutting done through the centre of town past the Town Hall and back.
We made short work of stuffing some Romano peppers with artichoke and feta filling and sat in the garden with a glass of wine while they cooked, then thought about how we might spend the next day …
A friend had booked a holiday rental in Suffolk and asked if we wanted to go instead when her plans changed. We were grateful for the offer as rentals booked quickly this year and we had pretty much left it too late for a July break.
So we are doing something a little different! We are off on a traditional British summer holiday to the seaside in Southwold, a charming town on the Suffolk Heritage Coast complete with a beach-hut lined promenade, a pier, a lighthouse and a sandy beach. What’s more, it required absolutely no research or planning, all we had to do was say yes and pay the bill!
We have been hoping for reasonable weather, always a big ask in England in the summer, and have packed for every season, but the recent forecast is looking very promising! There are walks around Southwold as well as each way along the coast and inland through marshes and heathland, as well as drives if the weather is not so so good. We’ve even packed our swimmers just in case, but I think that might be a bit optimistic!
I’m feeling just as excited about this holiday as I’ve been about some of our far more exotic travels … and only one more sleep!
