There and Back

Several of these next images were taken on a previous visit but I had forgotten to put them together, so here goes! Starting with a shot of the whole 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. The church is renowned for its East Anglian flushwork, especially that of the tower. Knapped and unknapped flints are arranged in patterns, textures and designs and create the stone work. You live and learn! The rood screen is considered by many to be the finest in the county. It stretches all the way across the church, a...

Southwold is a lovely coastal town I have visited before but never fully explored. So when a family holiday was proposed, I looked forward to finding out some details and obviouly some photos. Southwold was mentioned in Domesday Book (1086) as a fishing port. It received its town charter from Henry VII in 1489. The grant of the charter is still marked by the annual Trinity Fair, when it is read out by the Town Clerk. As a town its fortune was directly linked to the neighbouring town of Dunwich, which we also visited during our weeks stay in Southwold. Gun Hill Green - one of the many `greens` around Southwold. Nearby Dunwich had, by the thirteenth century, become one of the greatest east coast ports in England and one of the ten largest towns in the country. Its wealth was derived from trade, shipbuilding and the town’s large fishing fleet, due to the large harbour, the “Kings Fleet”, which was sheltered behind a shingle spit extending south from Southwold. However, the east coast was ...

When I think of Sizewell on the Suffolk coast, my mind immediately jumps to Nuclear power stations, and conjours up all sorts of negative thoughts surroundng them. There is another side to Sizewell and these are a few images to illustrate the beauty all around. The beach is like a lot of the surrounding area - shingle. Not easy to walk a great distance on. There are a lot of boats on the beach and I picked just this one out with the two offshore platforms in the background.  The platforms (now defunct) were there to service the intake and discharge tunnels used to run sea water through the cooling system. The cold water inlet was the farthest platform and the hot water outlet was the nearest platform. Taken on a previous visit when the sea was not so calm. I named this image `layers` as it appears to be in layers of colours. One of the dominant colours was yellow - yellow gorse everywhere, and the perfume was gorgeous. I had to include  `the Beast` - Sizewll B. The new C ...

Raydon - St Mary This is a church,  local  to where I live, that I had not explored at all in the past. One of the reasons I decided to start here today was that a local man had just finished carving a font cover and I wanted to have a look. However, starting on the exterior, it becomes obvious that it has no tower which I soon discovered had collapsed in the 17th century, possibly during the great storm of September 1658, when a couple of other Suffolk steeples came down. It has been replaced by a little bell turret, but apart from this the church is all of an early 13th century piece. Side (south) view of the church with the small bell turrett on the left (west) end with the pyramid roof. I read that the 2 foot 6 inch thick walls of the church are constructed of flint and rubble, with plaster rendering. Caen stone is used for windows, buttresses and doorways. As you approach the east end of the church while walking the footpath toward it, you will see a large 19th cent...