On Sunday the 24th February 2019 I left home at 6am and arrived at Aldeburgh at just after 730am. I parked up for free on the seafront (Thorpe Road) and set off to walk towards Thorpeness. It had been a foggy drive up and the fog was still hanging out over the sea.
The moment I'm out of the car the smell of the sea air hits me, can't beat that smell!
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It was home to the composer Benjamin Britten and has been the centre of the international Aldeburgh Festival of arts at nearby Snape Maltings, founded by Britten in 1948. It remains an arts and literary centre, with an annual Poetry Festival and several food festivals and other events.
Alde Burgh means "old fort" although this structure, along with much of the Tudor town, has now been lost to the sea. In the 16th century, Aldeburgh was a leading port, and had a flourishing ship-building industry. The flagship of the Virginia Company, the Sea Venture is believed to have been built here in 1608. Aldeburgh's importance as a port declined as the River Alde silted up and larger ships could no longer berth. It survived mainly on fishing until the 19th century, when it also became a seaside resort. Much of its distinctive and whimsical architecture derives from that period. The river is now home to a yacht club and a sailing club.
The beach is mainly shingle and wide in places, allowing fishing boats to draw up onto the beach above the high tide, but it narrows at the neck of Orford Ness. The shingle bank allows access to the Ness from the north, passing a Martello tower and two yacht clubs at the site of the former village of Slaughden. Aldeburgh was flooded during the North Sea flood of 1953 and its flood defences were strengthened as a result. The beach received a Blue flag rural beach award in 2005.
I walk on through the mist, it really gives it an atmospheric feel.
I reach the Maggi Hambling's Scallop.
On Aldeburgh's beach, a short distance north of the town centre, stands a sculpture called Scallop, dedicated to Benjamin Britten, who used to walk along the beach in the afternoons. Created from stainless steel by Suffolk-based artist Maggi Hambling, it stands 15 feet (4.6 metres) high, and was unveiled in November 2003.The piece is made up of two interlocking scallop shells, each broken, the upright shell being pierced with the words: "I hear those voices that will not be drowned," which are taken from Britten's opera Peter Grimes. The sculpture is meant to be enjoyed both visually and tactilely, and people are encouraged to sit on it and watch the sea.
The upright portion of the shell is separated into three sections positioned at slightly different angles. The positioning of these effects a visual transformation, depending on the vantage point from which the sculpture is viewed.
The sculpture is controversial in the local area, with some local residents considering it spoiling the beach. It has been vandalised with graffiti and paint on 13 occasions. There have been petitions for its removal and for its retention.
I walk on passing a couple of spots that looks like no restrictions (yet) that campers can park up for free.
I am now entering Thorpeness.
The village was originally a small fishing hamlet in the late 19th century, with folk tales of it being a route for smugglers into East Anglia. However in 1910, Glencairn Stuart Ogilvie, a Scottish barrister who had made his money building railways around the world, increased the family's local estates to cover the entire area from north of Aldeburgh to past Sizewell, up the coast and inland to Aldringham and Leiston.
Most of this land was used for farming, but Ogilvie developed Thorpeness into a private fantasy holiday village, to which he invited his friends' and colleagues' families during the summer months. A country club with tennis courts, a swimming pool, a golf course and clubhouse, and many holiday homes, were built in Jacobean and Tudor Revival styles. Thorpeness railway station, provided by the Great Eastern Railway to serve what was expected to be an expanding resort, was opened a few days before the outbreak of World War I. It was little used, except by golfers, and closed in 1966.
I walk out onto the beach to sit by the sea,listen to the waves crashing against the stones. It was hard going across the stony beach ,as a couple of weeks before I had sprained my ankle and I could really feel it again now.
Peace ! Absolute silence apart from the waves.
I walk off into Thorpeness and up to a green where there's a tearoom. (Meare shop and Tearoom).
An artificial lake, "mere" or boating lake was created where there had once been an Elizabethan shipping haven that had silted up. Many of the inspirations for the Meare came from a personal friend of the Ogilvies, J. M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan. Along with a large main pond, there are several channels with landings marked with names from the Peter Pan stories. Tiny islands on the Meare contain locations found in the novel, such as the pirates' lair, Wendy's house, and many others, where children are encouraged to play. The Meare was dug to a shallow depth for safety reasons.
A variety of boats can be rented to enjoy the water, many of them originals dating from the creation of the Meare and named by the local workmen who had dug the lake.
In August, the Meare serves as the location for the Thorpeness Regatta which usually takes place around the same time as the carnival in neighbouring Aldeburgh and attracts many visitors. During the day, boat races are held, and at night, boats that have been decorated are paraded around the Meare. This is followed by a grand fireworks display.
Next to the tearoom is a lovely lake that seems like it is actually part of the Hundred River. Looking across the lake you can see the Windmill and 'House in The Clouds'.
I walk around the lake and then into Lakeside Avenue.
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| 'House in The Clouds' |
I see a footpath that leads up the hill , so I take this hoping to get a better view of the Windmill and House in The Clouds.
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| An old Gypsy caravan in someones yard. |
Thorpeness Windmill is a Grade II listed post mill which was built in 1803 at Aldringham and moved to Thorpeness in 1923. Originally built as a corn mill, it was converted to a water pumping mill when it was moved to Thorpeness. It pumped water to the House in the Clouds.
Thorpeness Mill was built as a corn mill at Aldringham in 1803. In the 1890s the Ogilvy family were the millers.
In the winter of 1922, Aldringham Mill was dismantled by Messrs Whitmore's, millwrights of Wickham Market. Amos Clarke was millwright in charge. It was rebuilt at Thorpeness to supply water to the House in the Clouds, which is really a water tower disguised as a house.
The mill was used to supply the House in the clouds until 1940, when an engine was installed to do the job. During the war, some children blocked the tramway that the winding wheels driven by the fantail run on, with the result that the steps lifted up and the mill tilted forward, leaving the steps in the air. Although a number of men sat on the steps of the mill, it would not return to its natural state. Millwright Ted Friend, of Whitmore's was called in and soon restored the mill to normal with deft use of a sledge hammer. In 1972, the fantail was blown off in a storm and in September 1973 the mill was damaged by a fire on the heath where it stands. One sail and stock were destroyed. In 1975, Suffolk Coastal District Council, Thorpeness Estate and the Countryside Commission granted money to enable the mill to be restored. The mill was restored in 1977 and subsequently purchased from the Thorpeness Estate by Suffolk County Council.
In 2010 the Council put the Windmill on the market for sale at an estimated price £150,000.
The Council accepted an offer of £72,100 in November 2010.
To hide the eyesore of having a water tower in the village, the tank built in 1923 was clad in wood to make it look like a small house on top of a five-storey tower, with a separate water-pumping mill next to it. It is known as the "House in the Clouds", and after mains water was installed in the village, the old tank was transformed into a huge games room with views over the land from Aldeburgh to Sizewell.
The House in the Clouds was built in 1923 to receive water pumped from Thorpeness Windmill and was designed to improve the looks of the water tower, disguising its tank with the appearance of a weatherboarded building more in keeping with Thorpeness's mock-Tudor and Jacobean style, except seeming to float above the trees. The original capacity of the water tank was 50,000 imperial gallons (230,000 l) but during the Second World War, the House in the Clouds was hit by gunfire from anti-aircraft guns based at Thorpeness. The water tank was repaired using its own steel, which resulted in a reduced capacity of 30,000 imperial gallons (140,000 l). In 1977 the water tower was made redundant by a mains water supply to the village, and additional living space was created. In 1979 the main water tank was removed to fully convert the building into a house. The building currently has five bedrooms and three bathrooms; it contains a total of 85 steps from top to bottom and is around 70 ft high.
It has been a Grade II Listed Building since 1995.
The house was featured in the Suffolk programme during Series 3 of the Channel 4 TV Series Homes by the Sea in 2017.
It also featured on BBC's Flog It! on 8 May 2018.
Here is the website if you fancy a week here, but be warned its pricey, just over £3000 for week in the School summer Holidays!
I make my way back down to Lakeside Avenue and walk on up to the Golf Course.
For three generations Thorpeness remained mostly in the private ownership of the Ogilvie family, with houses only being sold from the estate to friends as holiday homes. In 1972, Alexander Stuart Ogilvie, Glencairn Stuart Ogilvie's grandson, died on the Thorpeness Golf Course. Many of the houses and the golf course and country club had to be sold to pay death duties.
I take a footpath across the Golf course.
I now turn left onto another path that takes me through North Warren Nature Reserve.
The North Warren reserve lies on the Suffolk coast on the north edge of the town of Aldeburgh and to the south of Thorpeness. Thousands of ducks, swans and geese use the marshes in winter, while spring hosts breeding bitterns, marsh harriers, woodlarks and nightingales.
It is so peaceful here, only birdsong. One one side a wood with song birds and a woodpecker drumming to the other Salt marsh with waders and geese calling.
I am now walking back into Aldeburgh. Passing houses and Church Farm Holiday park.
I walk onto a green where the Aldeburgh Sign sits.
On Saxmundham Road is where Millicent Garrett Fawcett lived.
Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett GBE (11 June 1847 – 5 August 1929) was a British intellectual, political leader, activist and writer. A feminist icon, she is primarily known for her work as a campaigner for women's suffrage.
A suffragist (rather than a suffragette), Fawcett took a moderate line, but was a tireless campaigner. She concentrated much of her energy on the struggle to improve women's opportunities for higher education, was a governor of Bedford College, London (now Royal Holloway) and in 1875 co-founded Newnham College, Cambridge. She became president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), a position she held from 1897 until 1919. In July 1901 she was appointed to lead the British government's commission to South Africa investigating conditions in the concentration camps that had been created there in the wake of the Second Boer War. Her report corroborated what the campaigner Emily Hobhouse had said about the terrible conditions in the camps.
I pass St Pauls and St Peters Church.
The church tower dates from the 14th century, but much of the rest is 16th century, including the nave, north aisle and north chapel of 1525-1529; the south aisle and chapel 1534-1535; the south porch of 1539 and the chancel 1545. It was restored between 1870 and 1871 by Henry Perkin and again in 1891 by EF Bishop.
There is a memorial by Thomas Thurlow to George Crabbe the poet (d. 1832) and a monument to Lady Henrietta Vernon, d.1786. The church is most famous as being the burial place of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears; also buried in the churchyard are Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Joan Cross and Imogen Holst. Britten is also commemorated in a stained glass window by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens. The church also houses a memorial to Newson Garrett and his wife, the parents of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.
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| Aldeburgh Cinema |
I now walk along Aldeburgh High Street.
I walk along Hertford Place where I pass Monarch House, former Telecommunications centre.
I walk up Brundell Street to the car park
Fort Green Mill is a tower mill which has been converted to residential accommodation.
Fort Green Mill was built in 1824. It was converted into a house in 1902.
I now walk back along the seafront towards the car.
The Aldeburgh Beach Lookout is a tiny art temple by the sea. Isolated yet at the heart of cultural innovation, it is a magical and stimulating setting for artists to respond each in their own fascinating way.
I now reach The Moot Hall that is closed at this time of the year.
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| Posh looking toilet block |
The Moot Hall was built during the first half of the 16th Century; the experts agree. Beyond that, however, there is no certainty. No documentary evidence exists; the style of the building suggests to one expert that it was built about 1520 and to another about 1550. We must be content with that. What we do know is that the building of Aldeburgh’s Town Hall coincided with the beginning of a period of prosperity in the town which lasted approximately 150 years.
I am now back at the car after just over a 6 mile walk and I drive off to take a look at Sizewell a short drive away.
I arrive at Sizewell and park next to the Nuclear Power Station, this would be a ideal night stay in the car, although there is a sticker now placed on the sign saying no overnight sleeping in vehicles!
I arrive at Sizewell and park next to the Nuclear Power Station, this would be a ideal night stay in the car, although there is a sticker now placed on the sign saying no overnight sleeping in vehicles!
Sizewell is a small English fishing village in the civil parish of Leiston, in the county of Suffolk, England. It lies on the North Sea coast just north of the larger holiday village of Thorpeness and between the coastal towns of Aldeburgh and Southwold. It is 2 miles (3.2 km) east of the town of Leiston and belongs within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB. It is the site of two nuclear power stations with plans for a third station to be built at the site.
The village is the location of two separate nuclear power stations, the Magnox Sizewell A and Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) Sizewell B, which are readily visible to the north of the village. Sizewell A is decommissioned and stopped producing electricity in 2006. The decommissioning process is expected to take until 2027 to complete, with the site not expected to be cleared until 2098. There are plans to build a third nuclear power station at the site, although as of May 2013 there were significant doubts about whether an agreement would be reached with the government.
"Chernobyl twinned with Sizewell" was a slogan used by anti-nuclear campaigners.
The village became the nucleus of the Ogilvie estate in 1859. It extended as far south as Aldeburgh. Sizewell Hall, now used as a Christian conference centre, is still owned by the Ogilvie family. From the end of the war up to 1955 it housed a mixed, semi-progressive prep school attended among others by the theatre critic and biographer Sheridan Morley.
Monument to 32 Engelandvaarderson Sizewell beach
The beach at Sizewell was the landing site of Henri Peteri and his brother Willem in September 1941. The brothers left the Dutch town of Katwijk in a collapsible canoe on a journey that took 56 hours.
Those who escaped occupied Holland were known as Engelandvaarders. About 1700 Engelandvaarders reached England, including about 200 men who reached England across the North Sea; 32 men tried to make a canoe trip like the Peteri brothers, but only eight succeeded in reaching the English coast.
In 2005, Henri Peteri commissioned a monument to the memory of the men who made the journey across the North Sea by canoe, consisting of a pair of crossed kayak oars and a broken paddle that commemorates those who did not survive the trip. In June 2009, the monument was unveiled by his widow on Sizewell Beach, together with the original kayak. An inscription on the broken paddle reads:
In memory of the thirty-two young Dutchmen
who tried to escape to England by kayak
during World War II to join the Allied Forces.
Eight of them reached the English coast.
The last living survivor dedicated this memorial
to his brothers in arms who were less fortunate.
He reached England – and freedom –
on this beach on 21 September 1941.
A handful of fishing boats still operate from the beach.
There is a tearoom here but closed at this time of year, still the car park was free at this time of year and was very peaceful here.
I start up the car for the drive home, Engine management light comes on. This would explain lack of power. So I limp the car home and hope its not too expensive to repair.
A great day out!
A great day out!