There and Back

In the late 19th century, the Thorpeness we know today was a tiny fishing hamlet on the East Coast, buffeted by the merciless North Sea and home to only a few houses that had not been taken into the waves by erosion.Just a couple of decades later, it would be transformed into a fantastical holiday village, with a beautiful boating lake, complete with Peter Pan islands, a 70ft fairy tale cottage on stilts, mock-Tudor homes and a luxury country club. In 1859, Alexander Ogilvie, a civil engineer from Scotland, bought Sizewell House as a holiday home in Suffolk. Having made a fortune from his work around the world as a railway engineer, within 40 years he had expanded his estate to over 6000 acres, stretching from Dunwich to the north, down the coast to Thorpe, and inland to Leiston and Aldringham. In 1908, the estate passed into the hands of Alexander’s son, Glencairn Stuart Ogilvie, born in 1858. Ogilvie was an Edwardian architect, barrister and playwright. After severe flooding ...

Woodbridge is one of those places where you never mind going back. Well I don`t anyway! It has history, by the bucketful, and beautiful walks by the river Deben. Here are some images of a couple of visits, starting with the iconic view of Woodbridge, the Tide Mill. But before moving down to look at the images, a bit of history.  The earliest record of Woodbridge dates from the mid-10th century, when it was acquired by St Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, who made it part of the endowment of the monastery that he helped to refound at Ely, Cambridgeshire in AD 970.The Domesday Book of 1086 describes Woodbridge as part of the Loes Hundred. Much of Woodbridge was granted to the powerful Bigod family, who built the famous castle at Framlingham. (Thats for another day) The town has been a centre for boat-building, rope-making and sail-making since the Middle Ages. Edward III and Sir Francis Drake had fighting ships built in Woodbridge. The town suffered in the plague of 1349, ...