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Dunwich
Dunwich maps
Historic maps of Dunwich and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Dunwich maps
Dunwich area books
Displaying 1 of 13 books about Dunwich and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Dunwich
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Dunwich.
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The Ghost at The Ship
My parents owned and ran The Ship Inn from 1960 to 1975. My father a retired soldier and wartime paratrooper had taken early retirement to buy the business, then called The Barne Arms Hotel after the estate. The new Inn sign was based on the Blue Peter logo from the BBC Children's programme (from whom he'd got permission to use a similar but not identical design). As boys, my brother and I shared an attic room. Shortly after I had left to go to the Army in about 1969/70 my brother had experienced a ghost in the attic room. Waking, he'd found what he described as a woman sitting beside his bed, grey in colour. As he woke, she'd risen, turned and seemed to walk through the wall beside him. Of course no-one believed him. Years later, in about 1998, my wife and I stayed with the owner, Annie Marshlain, at The Ship. She'd been a friend of my parents, having come over several years with friends to work... Read more
The Rubble on The Beach
I spent my teenage years in Dunwich, and in retrospect they were wonderful. Freedom, long walks, the beach and sea, cliffs, marshes and the old tank defences from WWII. My best friend Justin North, who lived at 'Marshside' opposite me at The Ship, and I spent hours during those years, roaming, swimming, canoeing, making carts to career down the hill from the monastery, and resurrecting a storm damaged painter's punt washed ashore to row to Walberswick on the irrigation rivers behind the dunes. Although All Saints had fallen off the cliff long before we were born, some of the cemetery remained on the cliff top, including numerous unmarked pauper's graves. Pieces of masonry and rubble still lay at the foot of the cliff, now covered frequently by the tides and the pebbles, but occasionally washed clean for brief periods allowing us to scramble over them. Our most interesting times however were after the neap tides in the Spring when high seas would wash away more of the... Read more
Dunwich Monastery Gateway
My earliest memory of Greyfriars in Dunwich was probably driving down the hill in my grandfather's old car in 1960 as he brought me to my new home at The Barne Arms Hotel. I had been at boarding school at Dollar in Scotland, and my grandfather had met me off the train in London and driven me along the tortuous roads (including the old A12) to Dunwich. Descending the hill, just before St James' Street opened out, the ruins on the right hand side seemed portentious, as I loved anything old and historic, and this was certainly both. Glimpses of the ruined buildings could be seen through the gate, and later I was to frequently circumnavigate the whole monastery, it's seaward wall being the final outer wall of the ancient city, and the gap between wall and clifftop getting shorter every year.
The first year I lived in Dunwich, there was I think, the last of the pilgrimages to the Monastery, with a religious procession led up the street,... Read more
Suffolk memories
Eddie Friend, Miller And Millwright at Westleton
My great great uncle, Edward Charles Friend, was listed on the 1901 Census as miller and wheelwright at Westleton. He was born at Wenhaston 10 April 1869, the ninth child and fifth son of Samuel and Sarah Friend (nee Driver) who married at Easton on 1 October 1849.
Edward Charles Friend
Edward Charles Friend was my father. His first wife died in 1930, he married my mother in February 1933 and I was born in December that year. Dad died in 1957, aged 88, and active until about three weeks before he died. He was a wonderful man, everyone loved him, I would love to know more of your side of the family please.
Wartime Westleton
Hi, My father Alfred Bell was in the Royal Artillery 136 Field Regiment and was stationed in Westleton in 1940 but did training in Dunwich as well. I have got a photograph taken on the green of a few of his comrades in uniform, he is sitting in the middle. The seat was round a tree (which was just a sapling then, I think he said the cookhouse was on the green as well with various huts as well for supplies. I wonder whether there is anybody from Westleton that still can remember those days? Not many, I would have thought. My father died in 1994, he went overseas not long after being at Westleton to fight in the Burma campaign.
My British Friends
My name is Alan Trageser and I was an American Airman living in Westleton from 1981 to 1985. My son was born at Ipswich hospital.
My greatest memories are of the wonderful people I met there like the older couple that befriended me, I called him Gramps and his wife Jess, and my friends like Adam (Gramps's grandson) and the wonderful family down the street from me and their son Vince, who would show me the best pubs in England. I was a wild 18-year-old boy living away from home for the first time with a wife and daughter named Brittaney. Many of the people not only put up with this wild American but learned to even love me! The street parties in front of the White Horse Pub were the best.
Thank you and may GOD bless England and the good people of Westleton!
