Road trip - Norfolk and Suffolk

Most years Tom and I have managed to get away for a bit of a road trip on the motorbikes. In the days before children/grandchildren, it was a week in France; this year we managed a couple of days in Norfolk and Suffolk.

Still, it's good to get away and spend some time with your children. Tom is working very hard as a freelance cameraman and he got offers of work both days we were away, which is frustrating for him. Freelancers never want to turn work down.

I've not ridden the bike very much this year - just a few trips to and from Baldock (I've only made one U3A Biker Group ride) so I was not at all saddle fit and at the end of a 250-mile ride I was ready for a couple of beers to ease the pain.

We couldn't decide whether to go to Yorkshire, Derbyshire or head east to the coast. In the end, we chose east and set a target of visiting Cromer, Southwold and overnighting at Tom's in Baldock. The following day, we'd head back into Suffolk and visit "Constable Country."

Schools are back, but it was surprising how busy the roads were in Norfolk. I did the usual run out to King's Lynn, then cut across country, around the back of Sandringham to Burnham Market and the coast road at Holkham. I could have taken a more direct route to Cromer, but this was a nicer ride, although traffic was choc-a-bloc in Stiffkey, where the road narrows through the village and it was the same in Cley. Cromer was absolutely crazy - we couldn't find any dedicated motorcycle parking and the town looked full. We did a couple of laps of the town centre, considered putting the bikes in a cycle park, decided against it and rode on looking for inspiration.

In North Walsham, inspiration came in the shape of a sign to the Norfolk Motorcycle Museum, which led us past a burger van, up a road at the side of a timber merchants and into a scruffy little yard where there was a fairly large warehouse and a covered verandah with three greasy blokes sitting on old leather settees eating sandwiches. Like fat old Labrador dogs, they were clearly very happy with their lives - not working too hard, doing a job they love and plenty of time to chat to their mates.

It cost a fiver to get in, but the owner gave us £2 discount because there was two of us. The museum was basically packed with old bikes, some pristine, some looking as if they'd just been found in a barn. Most of them were collected by the owner's dad and they were parked around the side and in the middle and to squeeze more in, some staging had been built, so it was two-tier bikes all the way round.

There was a real mixture of stuff - an American Henderson, a Vincent, lots of 1950s two-strokes (Francis Barnetts, Jameses and Cottons) - also some mopeds and some more modern Japanese stuff. There was probably a hundred bikes in there and probably half a million quids' worth. No attempt was made to explain or contextualise; they know their market - it's old blokes wandering round saying to their sons: "I had one of those."

I think I'll suggest an outing there to the U3A Biker Group, they're looking for some rides to slot in and this would be right up their street (in fact we'd struggle to get them out).

After the bike museum, I suggested we pop to Happisburgh to have some lunch. I thought we might be quite close and it turned out we were only a few miles away. Happisburgh is famous for coastal erosion and shipwrecks. I've often wanted to visit, but never got round to it. The village has a magnificent church with a huge square tower that stands out for miles. You can go to the top on weekends and Wednesdays, but sadly this was Tuesday.

The soft clay cliffs are easily eroded and a whole mediaeval village has disappeared into the sea (it's now several hundred metres from the beach), an aerial photo on the information board by the car park shows a row of houses in the field next to the lighthouse and now they are all gone. Some efforts have been made to stop the erosion, but it's a powerful natural process and very hard to prevent. Sooner or later, the sea will always win.

Memorial plaque to the lost souls of HMS
Invincible (nut not Admiral Totty).

The erosion has created a number of sandbanks offshore and these have been the ruin of many ships. It's a long list of disasters - 200 coal ships sunk in one night on the way back to Newcastle from London and over a thousand men killed, ship after ship has miscalculated the position of the sandbanks or been driven onto them in storms. The most famous disaster was the loss of HMS Invincible in 1801. She was driven onto the sandbank in a storm and 400 men lost their lives. Bodies were washed up all along the coast and were piled into carts and buried in a mass grave at Happisburgh Church. A memorial plaque was placed there quite recently by crew members of the last HMS Invincible (an aircraft carrier).

The ship was carrying Admiral Thomas Totty and captained by John Rennie. When it was driven onto the bank, a small fishing boat came alongside to try to help and Admiral Totty (in the best Costa Concordia tradition) nipped into the boat and promised to organise help. Some men got off in the ship's boats and were driven out to sea, although some were picked up by colliers; however 400 died including Capt Rennie.

If you want to know more about the various maritime disasters, there's a good website: http://www.happisburgh.org.uk/history/sea/losses-at-sea. Happisburgh (pronounced Hayesbro) is well worth a visit; the beach is beautiful and gets wider every year.

We had lunch in the Hill House pub and a nosy around the church, which is a fine building. There was a bizarre sign on the noticeboard outside the church and in the porch welcoming Pokemon gamers. An example of the church trying too hard to be down with the kids?

We then headed for Southwold via Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft. Southwold treats motorcycles with the same disdain as Cromer; I'm sure there are some motorcycle parking slots somewhere, but they are not signposted. We parked in the main street in a 30-mins free slot, just enough time for a coffee, except there were no coffee shops nearby! We ended up in the pub, often not the best bet for a decent cup of tea. The barman looked very grumpy when I asked for tea and coffee and disappeared for about five minutes. I thought he'd gone to put the kettle on, but he arrived back looking even grumpier with about 50 cups (obviously emptying the dishwasher is not his favourite job). The pub had one of those fancy coffee machines at the end of the bar and tea was made by dropping a tea-bag into a cup, pressing the button for hot water, placing a milk carton and two bags of sugar in the saucer and plonking it on the bar in front of you. The Japanese tea ceremony it wasn't! If you enjoy your tea, avoid the Red Lion in Southwold.

I hadn't been massively impressed on my last visit to Southwold and this was doing nothing to improve my view of the town. It seems full of old people with small dogs, jewellers, estate agents and restaurants. Well, we weren't going to be there for long because our 30 minutes parking was already overdue. I said we should visit the old port area before we left. This is reached by bumpy road (called York Road for some unknown reason) across a salt marsh taking you to the banks of the River Blyth. A cinder and gravel road leads along the quayside to a car park at the end of the quay where the river flows into the sea.

This is actually much more interesting than the town. There are boat builders and repair shops, chandlers, fish shops (or rather huts selling fish) and some restaurants/cafes. There's plenty of parking at the end and you can walk out to where the river meets the sea and get a good view of sandy beaches either side of the river mouth. To the south is the RSPB Minsmere nature reserve and also Sizewell nuclear power station.

The river bank and quay are covered with signs; not "Pokemon welcome" signs, but dire warnings about that will happen to you if you climb onto the rocks or down to the river. The signs say it is dangerous to climb on the "revetment", which assumes everyone knows what a revetment is and not just scholars of geography or military fortifications.

It was a long ride back to Baldock, but we were anticipating a run through lovely Suffolk villages. We had that all right, but the traffic was quite heavy and we were stuck behind a coach along narrow, twisty roads for about eight miles. We finally got past it, only to then miss a turning, take a detour to get back on the road and end up back behind the bus.

Once we hit the A14 (which was flowing smoothly) we stuck to it and eschewed the scenic route. The miles flew by at a steady 80-90mph, a bit fast for my taste, but Tom was leading and I was keeping a sharp lookout for police patrol cars. So I got a little nervous when I saw some lights approaching fast in my mirrors. I pulled over to let it pass and this three-wheel contraption blasted past, its three wheels doing close to three figures. The chap was wearing a leather jacket and had a purple Mohican haircut, but no crash helmet. He clearly has complete disregard for his own safety. He had sunglasses on (of course), but a bee on the forehead at 100mph is going to leave a mark.

We got onto the A505 at Cambridge and headed to Baldock via Royston. Tom knows a good back road, but we took the wrong route and ended up a long hill on a narrow road to god-knows-where. We turned round and headed back to the A505, but not before taking in a vista of the rolling hills. Royston is the end of the Chilterns and the whole area (including Baldock) is quite attractive (if you like rolling hills).

I was glad to be off the bike and have a stretch. We ate in the Red Lion and I had a sudden taste for cider topped off by a glass of Mount Gay rum back at Tom's. I was helping him dispose of the evidence before Lucy returns from Ecuador. Max is going to see him this week and will no doubt destroy the rest.

On Wednesday, the plan was to head back to Suffolk and visit the Vale of Dedham - Constable Country. We took the A120 past Stansted, Braintree and Colchester, where we picked up the A12 to Flatford Mill, where a good half dozen of Constable's most famous paintings are set. Flatford Mill was once owned by John Constable's father, but it is now owned by the National Trust and it's kept very well. There's a good car park and a short walk down to the mill and the River Stour. The mills, the bridge and other buildings featured in Constable's paintings are virtually unchanged and it's free to wander round.

The Stour had been canalised along this stretch and, in Constable's day (pre-railway) it was an important transport route so barges would be up and down all day long. The river now is clear and teeming with fish and ducks. It was a big temptation for the many dogs out for the day and most of them had a damp look.

We had a nice wander around, followed bya tea and scone in the cafe sitting outside by the river.

I don't know if Constable is a great painter, but his work certainly hit a sweet spot of nostalgia for a disappearing countryside as the industrial revolution drew people from villages into cities. The Hay Wain poster or Boots framed repro graced the wall of many a suburban home. It's interesting to be able to stand and see the exact scene (minus the wagon).

So this is where the Hay Wain was painted and it's almost unchanged.

Coming back, we'd intended to head up Dedham Vale towards Sudbury, then head to Haverhill, where we'd peel off and take the roads to Baldock and Peterborough separately. The roads and signs conspired against us and, although we got to see Dedham (and many other attractive villages) we were not heading in the right direction and ended up back in Colchester. Tom was able to plot a route to Haverhill and from there, we rode to Cambridge, parting at Duxford where I took the M11 for Peterborough.

It wasn't long before the road was blocked, but I was able to peel off at St Ives and come back via the Riptons. Missed turnings were still the order of the day and I went past the turn for Raveley. I knew it as soon as I had gone by, but decided to carry on to Wistow (never been there before and I thought I might be able to navigate a cross-Fen route back towards Whittlesey. Wistow is one of the more remote Fen villages and finishes at a dead end, unless you want to carry on to Warboys (which i didn't). I did find a road that cut across towards the Raveleys and Woodwalton and it was the narrowest, bumpiest road I've been on.

Back on the road to Upwood, Ramsey Heights and Ramsey St Mary, I was soon back in Whittlesey and home. After a second full day in the saddle, I was definitely in need of a stretch or a massage. I'm not getting enough time on the motorcycle to keep my neck muscles and wrists strong enough. The days when we'd do a 400-mile blast through France are no more.

Flatford Mill - much painted and now much photographed

This was the view of Flatford Lock (another Constable painting) except
the trees now hide the lock, which has also been rebuilt at the other side
of the river (apart from that, it's just the same)

Coffee and cake for Tom by the Stour at Flatford Mill

Save the Suffolk newts

Spaldings Farm, Framsden, Suffolk - our holiday
home for the week

We’re on holiday in Suffolk this week, staying at Spaldings Farm, Framsden, near Otley. It’s a really nice old place, timber framed with a thatched roof and clearly very old, although much modernised and renovated.

It seems odd to have a thatched farmhouse with mood lighting in the garden, flat-screen TVs in almost every room, full switchable stereo with outside speakers, electric gates and CCTV, but I guess that’s how things need to be.

Anyway, the place is lovely (as you can see from the pictures) and there’s lots of room. The grounds are about three acres and are fully fenced, which is why I got the place, so that the dogs could run around without getting into too much trouble. However, we didn’t bring them in the end because Margaret was worried about them making a mess. It’s a tough call, but as it happens, I think they would have been fine and, of course, we’re missing them like mad.

The place has a massive kitchen with all mod-cons, including a double-door fridge with wine cooler and a freezer with an automatic ice-making machine. Ice-making machines are the best thing ever - this one is plumbed into the mains, so that it just keeps making ice like the magic porridge pot kept making porridge (although this has a sensor so that it stops when the drawer is full). That would have been an ideal adaptation for the magic porridge pot, although sensors would not have been a regular feature of life when that story was concocted and they would have rather spoiled the plot.

We were a little worried to find a massive Aga sitting in the kitchen. They are the most stupid of appliances - great when it’s cold and they make the kitchen cosy, but having to have the thing kept on when the outside temperature is nudging 30 deg C and the kitchen is like a sauna is not good; also it is our only means of cooking (apart from microwave and barbecue), which means that we had to master Aga roasting - a dark art which can take years of trial and error to become proficient. Fortunately Tom managed it in a morning, so our chicken dinner on Sunday was saved.

We all arrived quite early on Friday and had a good look around the place. There are four bedrooms - two with doubles and en-suite bathrooms and two twins with a shared bathroom. There’s a big kitchen (complete with the Aga), a playroom-cum-sitting-room just off the kitchen, a laundry room, a snug with leather chairs and a massive open fireplace, a large dining room with woodburning stove and a large lounge with another massive woodburner. Outside there are three acres of land, lots of lawn, two patios, a play area with trampoline, a pond, a part-built swimming pool, wildlife area, orchard and a big drive with turning circle and double garage.

Friday was scorching, so we sat outside, drank G&T and then tucked into bread and cheese for supper. Tom and Hannah were here quite early, but Max and Inna couldn’t set off until later when Inna was home from work, so it was about 10.30pm when they got here. I’d had the usual rush to try to get all my work cleared before going away and, as usual, I hadn’t managed it. I got up at 6am to get some clear, leaving just one job to squeeze in somewhere over the weekend. We went to Whittlesey to stock up on groceries (I’d bought the cheese from Pimlico on Thursday) and then I had to take Holly and Gravel to kennels. They thought they were going on a walk across the Fen when Margaret put their leads on and Holly was a bit disappointed to be shown the boot of the car. Anyway, I got them dropped off at Chestnuts Farm and then packed and we set off at about 1.30pm.

We had so much wine, beer and food, that the car was jam-packed. If we had decided to take the dogs, we‘d have needed to make two journeys!

Saturday was a scorcher - hot and very sunny. Tom and Hannah wanted to go to Aldeburgh and set off for the seaside mid morning. We said we’d follow along and visit a few towns on the way as Max had forgotten to bring a pair of shoes (how can you forget to bring shoes?) so he was just wearing flip flops. We started off at Framlingham and did manage to get a pair of white trainers (very cheap and very white). Max takes a size 12 and I don’t think there was a lot of choice at that size. As it happened, I don't think he wore them more than once, so probably could have got away with just the flip-flops. Inna (allegedly) had eight pairs of shoes, so she was prepared for almost all eventualities.

Framlingham is a nice place. There’s an old castle at its centre, built at the highest point of the town and a old church with some 13th Century wall paintings. After getting the shoes, we parked up and then went for a walk around town. There were a few interesting shops, quite a lot of antique shops and a small market. I wasn’t very impressed with the market stallholders. The veg man was messing around re-arranging his produce while people were queuing to be served and the woman running the cheese stall was talking on her mobile all the time. I went up to take a look at the varieties on offer and she glared at me, almost challenging me to dare to ask a question so she’d have to interrupt her telephone conversation. Had she engaged me, instead of the phone, and offered me a couple of tastes, I might well have bought some more cheese.

After Framlingham, we headed for Saxmundham, which is in the general direction of Aldeburgh. It was baking hot. On the way, there was a village with a summer fair and a dog-agility competition, which might have been good, but we couldn’t see where it was on or where we might park.

Saxmundham is a fairly big place, but not exactly thriving. It’s like so many English market towns. The market is long gone and the centre of population now works in random pursuits or drives to Ipswich (I guess). It was nice enough, but a bit run down and we were not having much luck finding somewhere for a late lunch. Eventually we discounted the expensive (and not very nice looking hotel and went into a vintage market which was advertising tea and cake. Turned out not to look very appetising either and so we came out debating where there might be to eat. The chap selling plants outside suggested the bistro over the road, which turned out to be a good choice and we had a nice lunch. I had raspberry and coconut slice and a bottle of elderflower presse. After lunch, it seemed so hot that I floated the idea that we abandon Aldeburgh and head home for beer and chillaxing. Everyone must have been thinking the same thing - I’ve never seen such an enthusiastic response!

I was going to make pasta and cream sauce for dinner, but Tom wanted a barbecue. It sounded like a good idea actually and so we had chicken and sausage with veggie sausage and burgers for Tom and Hannah. It’s scary how quickly we’re getting through the booze. After dinner, it was such a warm night that we sat outside and watched the sun go down on the front patio. You could see the Milky Way quite clearly as there was no light pollution and no Moon and we also spotted a few random shooting stars in the dark sky. My minor triumph was working out how to open the window in my bedroom so it was a little cooler.

Sunset at the front of the farmhouse.

On Sunday, the weather was just as hot as it had been the previous day. From early morning it was too hot to sit in the sun. Pauline and Chris were driving down to spend the day with us and they arrived just before noon. This is a great place for entertaining because there is lots of room and also lots of different rooms, so you could lose people in the house quite easily.

It does mean that you can spread about, always find a quiet room and never feel too crowded (except in the kitchen at breakfast).

We had thought about taking a walk, perhaps to Framlingham, but everyone thought it was too hot (it was!) and so we spent the day sitting, talking and drinking. We had popped across to Stowmarket in the morning to stock up on food and Tom took charge of the cooking, which was a good thing because Margaret was not going to bond with the Aga and a half-cooked chicken disaster was looming.

We had two chickens, salad and roasted vegetables, with Linda McCartney quorn roast for the veggies. There was sparkling wine; also red and white and cloudy lemonade for Pauline, who was driving. Chris doesn’t realise how lucky he is having a wife who likes driving. We basically sat around all day enjoying the sun, trying to find shade and drinking.

In late afternoon, Tom came to the front patio to say there were newts dying in the part-built swimming pool. Max went round to see what was happening and came back with a couple of newts in a bowl, which were released into the big pond. After Pauline and Chris had gone, we mounted something of a slightly drunken rescue operation. The swimming pool was fully excavated and concreted, but not tiled. Rainwater had gathered in the deep end and, at some point, newts had got in there and bred. They’d clearly done quite well because there were lots of them, but now they had reached adulthood, they should have left the pond and been feeding on land. Trouble was they couldn’t climb the sheer walls of the pool and the hot sun meant they were literally baking on the concrete as they struggled.

Rescued newts ready for release next to the big pond.

We managed to scoop up about a dozen and then I constructed some newt ramps from lengths of wood found in the garden. After dark, I phoned Suffolk Wildlife Trust and left a “Save the Suffolk Newt” message on their answering machine. I fondly thought that there would be an army of newt rescuers round the next day complete with waders, nets and buckets. In fact I got a call from some young lass who said the newts shouldn’t be in the water at this time of year and I didn’t need to put them in water.

I said thank you and would someone be coming to help save the newts. She said we were doing exactly the right thing and it was quite all right to take them out of the pool where they were trapped. It seems the Suffolk Wildlife Trust is more interested in drinking coffee and worrying about where its next grant is coming from than rolling up its sleeves and putting on its wellies. Anyway, we were on our own.

Well not exactly - I’d also e-mailed the letting agents and told them the owner was allowing the slow and painful death of an endangered species, a rare colony of great crested, lesser spotted newts. I said bypasses had been diverted to save these poor creatures and here they were being baked alive in a half-built swimming pool. I had taken a drink or two! Anyway, a very nice chap from the letting agents phoned on Monday morning soon after the useless lot from the Suffolk Wildlife Trust and he sounded very concerned. He said he’d tried to call the owner, but thought she might be abroad and he’d get the cleaner to send somebody round to check it out.

While we were out for the day (in Southwold), I got a call from the cleaner, Karen, to say her partner had been round and the newts had gone. I feared the worse, a pogrom of newts.

When we went got back in the late afternoon, we went down to the pool and couldn’t see any newts. I had bought a net from the seaside so we could mount a more efficient rescue operation later that day, spending £1.99 on the best that Southwold Pier beach shop could supply. But there were no newts to net - the pond was bare. And there were no bodies either, no sign of a massacre. It seems my newt ramps had done the trick and the whole colony, under cover of darkness, had taken the opportunity to migrate. There was something wonderfully Biblical about the whole thing.

My sister Margaret had arrived late morning to spend a day or so with us and she must have thought we’d gone barking mad building newt ramps in half-built swimming pools. Is this what her brother gets up to on holiday - well yes it is actually!

Maggie was going to stay overnight and was very taken with the house. She said she’d like to spend her 65th birthday here and was very content to sit around in the sunshine reading her book. Around lunchtime, we set off for Southwold in the BMW with Maggie, Tom and Hannah. Max and Inna had gone to Aldeburgh on their own.

I was a little disappointed with Southwold and even more disappointed to get a speeding ticket driving out of town in the afternoon! I’d expected something a little more chocolate box/Cornwall pretty and the north part of the town where we parked is dominated by its pier and a scruffy car park with model boat lakes on the reclaimed land behind the sea wall. Erosion is a major problem along the Suffolk coast and Southwold has impressive concrete bulwarks and a network of groynes to hold onto the sand.

Tom was keen to have a swim in the sea so we walked north along the beach which extends way up the coastline in front of low cliffs. It’s actually a very nice beach, but we were near high tide so there was not that much of it available. Away from the scruffy car park and the scruffy pier, the land rises and you can walk up into the town, which is quite nice. I suspect it’s nicer still down towards the harbour, but we didn’t get down that far. Tom and Hannah were on a mission to find somewhere to eat and were not reaching a consensus on where that would be. I bought a few bits and pieces for a barbecue that evening from a somewhat grumpy Co-op store. It’s strange that the small stores always seem to be staffed with miserable, grumpy people. It’s the same with Tesco Express, I find. Perhaps the Southwold Co-op is run by the same family that has the cheese stall on Framlingham market?

Monday night was yet another barbecue - we’re certainly getting good value out of the little Weber they have for our use. The only disappointing thing is that they ask for you to barbecue on a small paved area some way from the house. I guess it’s to try to preserve the thatch and, if you own a thatched property, you clearly become paranoid about fire (with good reason, too). It does mean that the cook (me) is somewhat remote from the table conversation (and wine) and needs a string of runners to carry food back and forth.

Midge - the vineyard rabbit catcher

On Tuesday, we planned to visit a vineyard that Tom had found on the internet. It was called Gifford’s Hall and was at a place called Hartest, about 30 miles away. We could combine that with a visit to Lavenham on the way back. We hadn’t planned an early start and my sister was going to head home after lunch when we went to the vineyard. I called them in the morning to check that they were open and it was a good job I did because they were not expecting visitors and normally did vineyard tours only at the weekend. However, the person I spoke to (who turned out to be the owner, Linda Howard) was very keen that we went and said we could come at 2.30pm after lunch.

It was further than we thought and there were no brown tourist signs to tell you where the place was, just a little home-made sign saying Vineyard. When we got there the gate was locked, there was no-one around and the place looked a little bit scruffy. I called the number from my mobile and this time I got Guy Howard, the owner (and Linda’s husband). He was full of apologies, his computer was giving trouble, there was someone in doing the books and he’d forgotten to open the gate. He was round to the side pretty smartish and let us in.


Not a good start but the place was charming. It’s a family-run business by Linda and Guy Howard and they clearly love what they’re doing. Linda took us around the vineyard and told us a bit about the grapes before leaving us to it. Husband and wife (especially Linda, who is very charming) are involved right across the business from looking after the grapes to making the wine, marketing, delivery, etc. Midge the dog (a hairy whippet lurcher), whose job is to keep down the rabbits, accompanied us on the tour. The grapes are Bacchus and Madeleine Angevine; also some Pinot Noir. They are grown in small fields surrounded by hedges of trees to protect them from the cold wind. The vines are trained along lines and I suspect they’re a bit like blackcurrants in that the fruit grows on stems formed the year before. The vines were very prolific and many had thrown out runners and tendrils across the spaces between rows. The grapes were still quite small (pea-sized) but there was plenty of fruit on the vines and Linda said they’d get enough for 50,000 bottles of wine. Back at the office/shop, we had a tasting and the Bacchus wine was particularly good; we also tried their red (light, fruity with a hint of smoke) and their rose. They also make some liqueurs (raspberry and apple) and we ended up with two cases of wine and a bottles of raspberry liqueur. It was a really nice trip and we tucked in to some bottles back at the farmhouse that evening.

On the way home, we stopped off at Lavenham which is an amazing place and well worth a visit. It also has a free car park (near the church - how good is that). Lavenham was once one of the richest places in Britain (in the top five) with its wealth derived from wool. The result was a lot of fine mediaeval houses and, because the place fell on hard times, there was a make-do-and-mend policy rather than knock it down and build something better. So no grand Georgian, Edwardian or Victorian homes, just the biggest collection of mediaeval buildings in the UK. It’s wonderful to see, although the fact that none of them have driveways or garages, means that the views of the houses are somewhat spoiled by the Peugeot parked outside. I guess it would be impossible to keep cars out of Lavenham, although it would look much better for it.

Views of Lavenham by Tom Rayner

On Wednesday we went to Sutton Hoo, which is just across the River Deben from Woodbridge and very close to us (less than 10 miles away). It’s one of the most important archaeological sites in the country having given us valuable insights into the sophistication of pagan society, the surprising extent of Saxon trading activity and unearthed the richest treasure found in the UK.

Sutton Hoo is on high ground and in the 1930s the woman who owned the land asked a local archaeologist to excavate the burial mounds on the site. There were two large mounds and lots of smaller ones and in the smaller ones they found a number of examples of burials with boats (small canoes in these cases). One larger mound had already been partly excavated or robbed, but the other appeared to be untouched. What they found there was a massive ship burial, similar to sites in Sweden. They buried the ship below ground level, with a cabin constructed on the deck to hold the body and his earthly treasures. They then buried it and constructed a large mound on the top. Because of the acidity and the free-draining nature of the soil, everything organic rots quite quickly, so nothing was left of the boat except an impression in the soil (almost like a fossil) and hundreds of rusting iron rivets which would have held together the planks. The treasure (the buried person’s possessions) included a helmet inlaid with gold and silver, a fabulous purse and shoulder clasps, bronze bowl, sword and shield with rich inlays and a stag standard. The metalwork in the pieces was far more sophisticated than the Saxons were thought to be capable of and some of the precious stones were imported from what is now Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean.

All these have gone to the British Museum and there are replicas in an exhibition area at Sutton Hoo. I’ve seen the artifacts in the British Museum and they are amazing, but it’s still more amazing to stand on top of the burial mound and see the two stakes marking the prow and stern of the ship, which was much larger than I’d thought and had been dragged and manhandled up the hill from the Deben below. It was around 60 feet (20 metres) in length, would have been seaworthy and would have had 20 oars a side, plus a sail for the open sea for use when the wind was in the right direction (these ships were square rigged and so would not have been able to tack and sail against the wind. When they were excavating the ship, they found evidence of an attempt to rob the grave and the reason it failed was because the front of the mound had been ploughed away over the years and so, in Tudor times when the mounds were opened for the treasure to be taken, they miscalculated the centre of the mound and found nothing.

It was a lucky escape and I couldn’t help but think that it was a shame that the main mound had been opened in 1939 and not today when we would have had a much different approach, better techniques and would have discovered far more about the site.

Grave robbers had cleared out the other large mound, but later archaeological work confirmed a ship burial almost as large as the one uncovered in 1939. They also found a burial side-by-side of a Saxon warrior and his horse. Robbers had missed this treasure because the two were buried a little way apart and their usual technique of digging straight down from the centre of the mound had gone between the two bodies.

It was a lovely day and our guide did a good job explaining everything. It was also enhanced by a very old lady in the tour group, who was struggling to walk and keep up, but who remembered the news about the Saxon treasure being unearthed when she was a little girl. It was clearly big news at the time and she had always wanted to visit the site. She was so interested and so excited by everything and she must have been at least 80.

So who was buried at Sutton Hoo? No-one knows for sure, but the consensus is that the main grave is that of Raedwald who was king of the east Saxons in around 600-630. He was the first Christian king of the east Saxons, but he maintained a pagan shrine and his wife and advisors would not convert. One theory is that his grand pagan burial was a last huzzah for Wodin before Christ took over. The warrior/horse burial may have been that of his son, Raegenhere, who was killed in the Battle of the River Idle near modern Bawtry in East Yorkshire. The other ship burial may have been his father Tytila. Sadly, we know little about Raedwald. What we do know is from Bede and written around 200 years after his death, so it’s an educated guess that he was buried at Sutton Hoo. Documents which may have confirmed that would have been lost in subsequent centuries when the monasteries of East Anglia were raided and destroyed by Vikings.

We had been planning a trip to Aldeburgh all week and, as Thursday was our last day, we decided to make this Aldeburgh day. Tom and Hannah had been on our first day and Max and Inna had gone on Monday. Aldeburgh is very much in the mould of Southwold, but has a shingle beach, and it is a nice place to wander around. It has a real, old-fashioned feel to it. One nice feature is that there are lots of shacks selling local-caught fish, including a decent amount of line-caught. Nice to see sustainable fishing in at least one part of Britain.

We stayed at Aldeburgh for lunch and then popped in at Framlingham on the way home. We’d been there on Saturday, but hadn’t had time to look at the castle, so on our last day Tom and I were going to have a quick look around, while Hannah and Margaret had a look around town. Funnily enough, Max and Inna had been visiting Orford Castle on the coast and, on a clear day you are supposed to be able to see Orford from Framlingham (and vice-versa, of course). Framlingham is a castle built of a curtain wall with connecting towers, quite unusual. It was built in the 11th century by Roger Bigod and has had a fairly quiet life. It was besieged and taken by King John in 1215, but that was about it. By the time of the Civil War it had become a poor house, which meant it posed no threat. This is a ruin that Cromwell had not knocked about a bit. The most interesting thing is that it was owned by the Howard family, one of Henry’s courtiers and the family of Catherine Howard and Anne Boleyn (both beheaded). It was also the site where Mary I was declared queen of England.

You can walk around the battlements and there are good views of the town and the countryside. To the north there’s a mere, which would have been used for fish back in the day and was much larger than it is now.

Back at the farm, there was time for one last barbecue and it was time for home in the morning. Suffolk is a really good place for a holiday. It’s only two hours drive from us and also pretty easy to get to from London. I really liked Spaldings Farm; it had lovely grounds, lots of character and there’s plenty to do for a week.