There and Back

A few days during the school half term to charge the batteries before the darkness of winter descended. Although we had been to Kent before, the village of Elham was a new area and allowed us to show Hayley and Izobelle some of the places we had visited before. The village of Elham was a picturesque and a very quiet place, and the house we had for the week was very well equipped, having plenty of room and a beautiful garden. Shame it wasn`t summer time! The only minor problem was getting to anywhere else was rather slow, as all surrounding roads were so small and potholes everywhere!  The village sign. Our holiday house with the view from part way down the garden. Looking toward the bottom of the garden. View of St Mary`s Church from the bedroom window. The village itself was full of historic buildings. After the Conquest, William I granted the Elham estates to his half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and, following Odo’s disgrace, to William d' Aubigny. Later John, Earl of Eu, a r...

An exhibition of modern art taking place in Bury St Edmunds at Moyes Hall, (with a mention of artists such as Banksy and Tracey Emin) caught my eye and, thinking it would be a good morning out, we determined to visit.  It was well worth the visit. However, the artists who really caught my eye were the `Connor Brothers`- who are not in fact related at all! Art has always asked us tough questions about where truth ends and where artifice begins — and indeed, whether there can or should be a boundary at all. However, in an era of obsessive social media use, competing cultural narratives, ‘fake news’ and post-truth, it is a matter that may have never been more pressing for our world. It is into such a world that The Connor Brothers have stepped — and are already enjoying staggering commercial success and cultural currency. But in the case of this once-mysterious duo, it is now a little easier to separate fact from fiction — or at least, that may seem so on first inspection. They just b...

In answer to the question posed in the title, my initial reply was "not a lot". After two recent visits, I can now answer "Quite a lot"! Sitting on the opposite shore of the Deben to Felixstowe Ferry,  it is a beautiful river estuary with mooring for large number of small boats. Then it has Bawdsey Manor where Bawdsey Radar Transmitter Block was the first operational radar station in the world, and the exhibition it has, is housed in the original 1937 building. The exhibition tells the story of the "Invention that Changed the World". It reveals how scientists, engineers and technicians came together at Bawdsey in the 1930s in total secrecy to prove that radio waves could locate aircraft, ships and other targets. Bawdsey became the world's first operational radar station in 1937 and played a pivotal role in the Battle of Britain in 1940. The Manor itself is now a School Adventure Centre. Just shows how wrong you can be! My visits during the past week w...

On a walk around Woodbridge, it doesn't take long to realise that there is a name that crops up time and again - Thomas Seckford. It is remarkable that the life of one man, living in the turbulent Tudor era, should have had such an enduring impact on the town of Woodbridge and the surrounding area of Suffolk: an impact that is as powerful today as it has been down the centuries. Thomas Seckford was born in 1515 at Seckford Hall, the family seat outside Woodbridge which is now a luxury hotel. His country house was the Abbey, now the junior school for Woodbridge School. He built for the town the Shire Hall to serve as the local court, which it continued to do until the late 20th century and now houses the Council Chamber and the Foundation’s archives. For a time he owned the iconic Tide Mill, one of only two working tide mills remaining in the United Kingdom. Seckford was a prominent lawyer who served Queen Elizabeth I in a number of important judicial roles. He amassed a considerabl...

Now for a story of the strange going-on in Akenham churchyard, near Claydon. This strange incident from a sleepy Suffolk parish had a far reaching impact in that it is considered that it led directly to the passing of the Burial Laws Amendment Act of 1880. Peace in the parish was initially disturbed following the appointment of Rev George Drury as rector of Claydon and Akenham in 1846. He was of the High Church, or what today would be called Anglo-Catholic, and introduced candles, a cross on the altar at Claydon, vestments, daily communion and incense none of which went down well with the local Protestant parishioners and resulted in the Bishop of Norwich intervening. All the items he introduced were actually illegal at the time and other priests had been prosecuted, and some imprisoned, for similar actions. Tensions in the village continued to rise when the parishioners elected as churchwarden Mr Smith of Rise Hall, a local landowner and a nonconformist. Rev Drury obviously refused ...

St Mary's in Badley, is one of Suffolk's most remarkable medieval churches - its setting and unmodernised interior give an atmosphere of great peace and stillness. To discover its charm, you must begin with a journey - a mile's walk or drive down a rutted track across Suffolk farmland, to a small valley of trees and birdsong. The flint-and-brick church has nothing for company but a sixteenth-century farmhouse and the wildlife of its pretty churchyard. Passing through the sturdy medieval door with its iron grille, you step into a time capsule - a church scarcely changed for 300 years with plain walls and a brick floor set with memorials to the Poleys, once owners of the house nearby. The seventeenth/eighteenth-century arrangement of the pews, which incorporates Medieval benches, combined with fragments of a screen with seventeenth-century panelling, where the oak is silvery-grey with age, make an extraordinary ensemble. The day I chose to visit was rather dull and damp so th...