Southwold to Covehithe Suffolk Circular walk 24.06.22

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On Friday the 24th June 2022 Mike and I drove just over 2 hours to Southwold in Suffolk and arrived at 0950 hours. We parked for free in Pier Avenue, donned our boots and walked down to the pier.

This walk is dependant upon tides and consultation of tide times is vital in order to negotiate the beach route.

You should consult the tide times as the tide does cut off access in front of the cliffs at Easton Bavents. The cliffs along this section are rapidly eroding and you should not attempt to walk at the foot of the cliffs either due to the risk of falls. There is also the possibility that Easton Broad may have been breached during winter storms making the beach impassable at this point in which case one can only return to Southwold. Allow a couple of hours either side of low tide and use a visual inspection before setting out.

We had a quick look at the pier, before we decided to start our walk.

The pier was built in 1900 as a landing stage for steamships that brought tourists from London Clacton and Great Yarmouth until the 1930s.It was 270 yards (250 m) in length and finished with a T-shaped end.

The ownership of the pier transferred from that of the Coast Development Company following its winding up in 1906, to The Amusement Equipment Company.

The landing stage of the pier was destroyed during a storm in 1934, with the T-shaped end being swept away. An addition to the pier of a concert hall and amusement arcade was made during 1937 at the shore end of the pier.

During the Second World War the pier had a section removed due to the fear of its use during an invasion. Further damage occurred from an impact with a mine. The pier was rebuilt after the war at a cost of £30000.

Further damage caused by storms in October 1955 and February 1979 left the length of the pier at 20 yards (18 m).

In 1960, a part of the pier pavilion was transformed into the Neptune Bar public house.

Parts of the pier were further restored during 1987 where additional work was carried out to both the theatre and function room. After the reconstruction the pier then reopened in December 1988.

The pier was bought by Chris Iredale in 1987 and he first spent five years turning the pavilion into a profit-making business. A major refurbishment program was started in 1999 in order to rebuild the pier. This was completed to a design by Brian Haward ARIBA AABC Architect of The Rope House Southwold and constructed by Nick Haward [Southwold] Limited in 2001 almost 100 years after it was first opened. In 2002 a new T-Shaped end was added, bringing the pier to a total length of 208 yards (190 m). This additional length now allows the pier to accommodate visits by Britain's only surviving sea-going steam passenger ship, the PS Waverley paddle steamer and its running mate the MV Balmoral.

The pier is home to several shops and attractions including traditional souvenir shops, cafés, restaurants and amusement arcades.

Before we set off down the beach, we stopped for the convenient toilets here, much needed after the drive up.

We pass the pretty brightly painted beach huts here. Some are available for daily rental.

We walk down onto the beach and clamber over a few boulders and down onto the sand, here on Sole Bay.

The naval Battle of Solebay took place on 28 May Old Style, 7 June New Style 1672 and was the first naval battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch War.

The battle began as an attempted raid on Solebay port where an English fleet was anchored and largely unprepared for battle, and ended at a hard fought draw.

Both sides later claimed victory.

We are now walking below the cliffs of Easton Bavents.

The place-name Easton Bavents is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Estuna. It takes the form Eston Bavent in the Charter Rolls of 1330. The first part of the name means "eastern settlement". The Feudal Aids of 1316 show that the village was then held by Thomas de Bavent, Bavent being a place near Caen in Normandy.

Medieval Easton Bavents was a parish of some importance, granted a weekly market in the 14th century, with a three-day fair on the feast day of St Nicholas of Myra (6 December). Records show the parish church, dedicated to St Nicholas, was still in use in 1639, and a rector appointed as late as 1666. However, the cliff on which the village was built collapsed. The church itself seems to have sunk under the sea in the latter part of the 17th century. A chapel dedicated to St Margaret the Virgin also disappeared.

The Battle of Solebay in the Third Anglo-Dutch War took place in 1672 off the coast of Easton Bavents, which survived as a fishing village until the 19th century. The continuing erosion of the cliffs makes the area a popular, albeit hazardous area for fossil hunters, who approach it along the beach from Southwold.

The pace of erosion has averaged some 3 metres a year since 1945, although storms and high tides increase the rate. The last three terraced houses on the cliff edge were demolished in January 2020. Author Juliet Blaxland wrote a memoir about living in one of them. Called The Easternmost House, it was published in 2019 and nominated for the Wainwright Prize.

It really is such a joy to be out of the city and walking on the beach with the sun shining, the sound of the waves and the sea breeze in your hair. Back to work tomorrow, but for now I'll enjoy the freedom of an empty beautiful beach. Suffolk really do have some of the best beaches!

Up in the cliffs are many holes that are home to the many sand martins, diving in and out. A real joy to watch!

Further up the beach we reach Easton Broad.

Easton Broad is so close to the sea with only a beach separating its waters from the sea. A sluice has been constructed on the southern side to assist in managing the outfall. Once a sizeable broad , these days there is no more than a small pool, its side brimming with tall dense reedbeds. A century ago this was a vast body of water stretching up the coastline but erosion has taken its toll with some 1000ft of coast being taken by the sea in that time. On the north side of the Broad are the remains of trees scattered across the beach, these have succumbed to tidal erosion of Easton Wood that sits on the clifftops above. This is an ever changing scene and every visit provides a different beach landscape. For many years a sole tree stood upright in the tidal waters stripped of bark and an icon to the never relenting erosion.

A tree stump that resembles a seal we thought, what do you think?

Ahead in the distance is Covehithe the destination of this walk.

It was hot day and the lure of the sea was too strong, time for a dip in the sea.

The sea temperature was lovely, shame about the waves crashing over me .

As much as I'd love to have stayed in the sea longer, we had a walk to complete and I got dressed and walked back over the beach towards the path.

I ended up walking through a muddy patch near the broad in barefoot, feet now covered in sticky mud.

I sit on a log by the broad trying to scrape the sticky mud from my feet, its n good and I walk back over to the sea and wash the mud from my feet.

With the mud gone, I sit back on the log remove the sand and pull my socks and boots back on.

We walk on up the Covehithe Cliffs along a sandy path.

We are walking across Church Farm and stop to say hello to some friendly pigs.

We reach a road and turn right to walk to the church here at Covehithe. The google car was here takeing its photos of the area.

St Andrew's Church is a partly redundant Anglican church in the hamlet of Covehithe. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, Part of the church is in ruins and this is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. The church stands on a lane leading directly towards the sea, in an area of coast which has suffered significant ongoing erosion. The parish of Covehithe has been combined with neighbouring Benacre.

The oldest fabric in the original large medieval church dates from the 14th century, although most of it is from the 15th century. During the Civil War much of the stained glass was destroyed by the local iconoclast William Dowsing. By the later part of that century the large church was too expensive for the parishioners to maintain, and they were given permission in 1672 to remove the roof and to build a much smaller church within it. This small church is still in use, while the tower and the ruins of the old church are maintained by the Churches Conservation Trust.

Newer small church

The west end of the 17th-century church is built against the tower. Its fabric includes much material re-used from the older church, and some brick. Its roof is thatched. The windows have two lights separated by wooden mullions, and contain diamond-leaded windows. Both the north and the south doorways have been re-used. The east window dates from the 19th century. Inside the church is a 15th-century carved octagonal font. At the west end are 15th-century pews with poppyhead carving. The wooden pulpit contains some 17th-century carving. Under the tower arch are the royal arms of George III.

Medieval church

This is constructed in random flint rubble with stone dressings. Its plan consists of a nave, a chancel, north and south seven-bay aisles, a north sacristy, and a west tower. The tower is still intact and is in three principal stages, with buttresses and a battlemented parapet. On the south side of the middle stage is an ogee-headed opening. There are bell openings on each side of the top stage, but their tracery is missing. The wall of the south aisle is more complete than the north wall, and contains six intact window openings. The chancel projects one bay beyond the aisles, and contains tall window openings in its north and south wall, and a large east window opening. The buttresses at the east end are decorated with chequered flushwork, and contain canopied niches for statues. Some of the carved corbels for the chancel roof are still present.

A little known aspect of Covehithe is the location of a nuclear bunker. Its location is unknown know but there are a couple of references to it. It is stated there is a '1 historic nuclear hardened GPO cable bunker.

We leave the church behind and head off back down the road that is the official Suffolk Coast Path.

It is a bit of road walking now, not a busy road but there is enough traffic driving down to the church.

At the end of the road we reach the B1127 and we turn left and across the road is a old Hillman Imp for sale.

We walk on alongside the B1127 passing Church Farm.

Across the road is the church of St Lawrence's at South Cove.

The Church of England parish church of St Lawrence has a 12th-century nave with original doorways, and a tall 15th-century three-stage tower. The chancel is probably from the 14th century and was restored in 1877. The building was designated as Grade I listed in 1953. Today the parish is part of the Sole Bay benefice, a group of eight churches.

Almost opposite the church we take another track on our right and follow this along.

We follow the road along pass Frostenden Farm.

We reach Frostenden Corner where a house there has a wild flower meadow as their front garden, very nice.

We follow the path along that then goes through Spores Wood.

We continue to follow the Suffolk Coast Path and cross Reydon Grove Farm.

We are now walking along a country Lane towards Reydon.

We pass some Almshouses in Reydon.

Reydon's Alms houses, ‘The Rest' in Covert Road, were opened in 1908. With their distinctive gate houses, the appearance has changed little on the outside, but they have been greatly improved inside.

The benefactor was Andrew Matthews, a successful businessman with a main home in Willesden, and a house in Lorne Road Southwold. One unusual rule was that any resident displaying a certain photograph of his wife, Ellen, on her birthday, was given a 5 shilling reward!

These grade 2 listed buildings are still run by a charity for local older residents.

At the end of the road by the Reydon village sign we turn left onto the A1095 that leads us back into Southwold.

Southwold was mentioned in Domesday Book (1086) as a fishing port, and after the "capricious River Blyth withdrew from Dunwich in 1328, bringing trade to Southwold in the 15th century", it received its town charter from Henry VII in 1489. The grant of the charter is marked by the annual Trinity Fair, when it is read out by the Town Clerk. Over following centuries, however, a shingle bar built up across the harbour mouth, preventing the town from becoming a major Early Modern port: "The shingle at Southwold Harbour, the mouth of the Blyth, is ever shifting," William Whittaker observed in 1887.

Southwold was the home of a number of Puritan emigrants to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s, notably a party of 18 assembled under Rev. Young, which travelled in the Mary Ann in 1637. Richard Ibrook, born in Southwold and a former bailiff of the town, emigrated to Hingham, Massachusetts, along with Rev. Peter Hobart, son of Edmund Hobart of Hingham, Norfolk. Rev. Hobart had been an assistant vicar of St Edmund's Church, Southwold, after graduating from Magdalene College, Cambridge. Hobart married in America Rebecca Ibrook, daughter of his fellow Puritan Richard Ibrook. The migrants to Hingham were led by Robert Peck, vicar of St Andrew's Church in Hingham and a native of Beccles.

We visit the Adnams Brewery shop, realising we're not gonna be able to carry all this beer, we buy one each to drink on the beach and will return with the car.

A fire in 1659 devastated most of the town, creating spaces that were never built on again. Today this "series of varied and very delightful village greens" and the restriction of expansion by the surrounding marshes, have preserved the town's tidy appearance.

On the green just above the beach, descriptively named Gun Hill, six 18-pounder cannon commemorate the Battle of Sole Bay, fought in 1672 between English and French fleets on one side and the Dutch (under Michiel de Ruyter) on the other. The battle was bloody but indecisive and many bodies were washed ashore. Southwold Museum has a collection of mementos of the event. These cannon were captured from the Scots at Culloden and given to the town by the Duke of Cumberland, who had landed at Southwold in October 1745 having been recalled from Europe to deal with the Jacobite threat. In World War II they were prudently removed, reputedly buried for safety, and returned to their former position after hostilities.

On 15 May 1943, low-flying German fighter-bombers attacked the town and killed eleven people.

Southwold Lighthouse is a lighthouse operated by Trinity House in the centre of Southwold in Suffolk, England. It stands on the North Sea coast, acting as a warning light for shipping passing along the east coast and as a guide for vessels navigating to Southwold harbour.

The lighthouse, which is a prominent local landmark, was commissioned in 1890, and was automated and electrified in 1938. It survived a fire in its original oil-fired lamp just six days after commissioning and today operates a 180-watt main navigation lamp. This lamp has a range of 24 nautical miles (44 km; 28 mi).

The lighthouse is 31 metres (102 ft) tall, standing 37 metres (121 ft) above sea level. It is built of brick and painted white, and has 113 steps around a spiral staircase. Two keeper's cottages were built next to the lighthouse rather than living quarters being made in the lighthouse itself.

We walk pass Adnams Brewery and the air is filled with the amazing smell of malt as there is obviously a mash going on right now. I stand next to the vents breathing in the sweet smell of malt.

Beer has been brewed on the same site in Southwold for at least 670 years.

The earliest record of beer being brewed here, is from 1345. "Ale wife" Johanna de Corby and 17 others were charged by the manorial court for serving illegal measures. There's none of that business today.

1880 - Tally Ho was first brewed in this year and is still brewed today. 

We walk back around the town on the hunt for a chip shop.

We buy some chips from The Little Fish and Chip shop and head off down to the beach.

Don't get much better than this Chips and a Adnams Dry Hopped lager on the beach. Chips were amazing as was the beer. Had to keep a close eye on the interested seagulls eyeing up our chips. Or maybe they have developed a taste of Adnams beer, either way they were having neither!

We walked back to the car and drove back to the Adnams Shop to buy some beer parking outside St Edmund King and Martyr Church.

The parish church of Southwold is dedicated to St Edmund, and is considered to be one of Suffolk's finest. It lies under one continuous roof, and was built over about 60 years from the 1430s to the 1490s; it replaced a smaller 13th-century church that was destroyed by fire. The earlier church dated from the time when Southwold was a small fishing hamlet adjacent to the larger Reydon. By the 15th century Southwold was an important town in its own right, and the church was rebuilt to match its power and wealth.

After a wonderful 12.5 mile walk we head off back home.