Dunwich, Suffolk

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... [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... [more]

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... [more]

Southwold to Aldeburgh Photographic Memories

What weddings and baptisms brought joy to the community from within these walls of All Saints' in olden times? Now the sad remains await the final indignity, as the sea completes its task of 700 years and claims the last monuments of a once great town.

Suffolk Photographic Memories

Not much more than St James's Street is left of Dunwich, once the seat of the Saxon king of East Anglia, and once one of the greatest and most prosperous ports in the country. When this picture was taken, what remained of Dunwich still had the last of its old churches. It had started to collapse five years previously, and finally... [more]

East Anglia

The story of the demise of Dunwich, in medieval times a prosperous port until the ravages of the North Sea gradually demolished its soft, sandy cliffs, is one of the most romantic of the Suffolk coast. There were still substantial remains of All Saints' parish church on the cliff top above the beach tents when this photograph was taken; here we... [more]