It's been ten years since we were last in Norfolk and Suffolk and visiting some of the great lighthouses they have on this coast. So, it was a treat to return and enjoy a short Easter break on the south coast in Felixstowe checking out a few new places and revisiting some old favourites. There was an unintentional artistic thread running through our adventures that will unravel as we journey through the green and pleasant lands of East Anglia.
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| Felixstowe Container Port |
But starting with the facts, Felixstowe is the UK's biggest container port and it's Terminal Port, on the estuary where the River Orwell and River Stour meet and face the North Sea, dominates its western shoreline. It's a mighty impressive array of cranes and gargantuan ships and if that kind of thing floats your boat there is a rather nice viewing point and café at Landguard Point, which is also where you can catch the small ferry boat to Harwich and Shotley.
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Felixstowe Container Port
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The small town is perfectly equipped with good options for food and beverages and at Beach Street opposite the sprawling beachfront you'll find a mash-up of pop-up bars and restaurants housed in shipping containers in keeping with the theme of the town. The folk of Felixstowe love a beach hut and the extensive promenade and beaches that stretch from the southern Landguard Point to Old Felixstowe in the north of town are teeming with the little fellas. They go for a price that would buy a nice three bed semi-detached in other parts of the country!
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The short fifteen-minute ferry boat to Harwich provides great vantage point to view the vast Container Port in all its colossal glory and you pass several lightships on route. Harwich has strong naval ties and is home to one of the main bases of Trinity House who look after the upkeep of the UK's lighthouses. As you would expect Harwich is awash with Lightships, Lighthouses and Leading Lights and they are all within comfortable walking distance of each other making for an excellent seafront stroll.
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| Lightship, Harwich Harbour |
There were three Lightships in the busy estuary and one rather famous one permanently docked in the harbour. Lightship LV18 is the last surviving example of a manned Lightship, and it was from here that Radio Caroline was broadcast in the mid-sixties. Operating outside the three-mile UK exclusion zone the new radio station broke BBC monopoly on radio and was the birth of commercial radio. It's free to have a wander around this iconic ship and there is a small museum dedicated to its pop picking past.
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LV18 Lightship, Harwich Harbour
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Heading away from the harbour along Marine Drive you find the first of two sets of 'Leading Lights'. These are two lighthouses that line up when viewed from sea and provide an essential navigation reference point, in this case to navigate around Landguard Point.
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| High Lighthouse, Harwich |
The High Lighthouse on St Helen's Green and the nearby Low Lighthouse are both open to the public and run by enthusiastic volunteers. Incredibly, the High Lighthouse was a tall but compact social dwelling until the sixties and was lived in by some rather fruity characters, who are all celebrated with small exhibitions on the various floors of the light house. The maritime museum at the Low Lighthouse has a replica of the painting John Constable completed of the lighthouse in 1820, and we'll bump into him again as we head inland.
Over the years the sands shifted around the mouth of the Stour estuary and the two original leading lights were retired and their role replaced by two rather splendid steel lighthouses perched on Dovercourt Beach, one on the promenade and the adjoining light on a causeway in the sea.
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| Dovercourt Beach Leading Lights, Harwich |
It's a short walk between the sets of lights and on the way, you'll pass a 'possible' Banksy painting. The painting is on a pill box by Harwich’s Beacon Hill Fort and depicts a boy with a face mask on the end of a fishing line. Despite being unconfirmed it is now protected by the elements by a plastic sheet installed by the Council which lends a little bit of excitement to our discovery - We didn't know of it previously, so it was a nice surprise on our light house hunt.
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| Banksy or no Banksy? Harwich |
On one of several inland walks in Suffolk we explored the Dedham Vale National Landscape on a great stroll taking in the National Trust estate at Flatford. Here, the calming riverbanks, green pastures, and dripping trees were the inspiration for the artist John Constable, including his most famous painting, the Hay Wain, 1821. I expect a lot of the scenery remains largely unchanged from two hundred years ago, it is quintessential English countryside at its best. And in keeping with that theme, you are never too far from a homely pub decorated in a mass of hanging baskets, typically sat next to a bright red GP phone box (now a defibrillator station). Perfect.
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| Inspiration for Constable's Hay Wain, Dedham |
Further along the Suffolk coast is Southwold. The lighthouse has pride of place in the centre of the town amongst the whitewashed and pastel-coloured houses and makes this place always worth a visit. From the centre of the town head along the beach adorned with beach huts to Walberswick. This small village is essentially a few pubs and vintage shops set around a pleasant green at the mouth of the River Blyth. You can save yourself half an hour by paying the ferry man or lady to take you over the estuary for the princely sum of two pounds (one-way). But walk back and check out the fisherman shops and restaurants on the banks of the river.
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| Walberswick on the River Blyth |
Having completed our excursion to Walberswick we returned triumphant to eat fish and chips in the shadow of the lighthouse. The full fish supper with mushy peas were superb until they landed like a depth charge in our tummies twenty minutes later!
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| Southwold Lighthouse |
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