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Southwold to Aldeburgh Photographic MemoriesSelected extracts and photosReturn to Book | Search for another Book | View all photos for Southwold | Southwold homepage |
46 captions found: Showing captions 1 to 20 | |
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 Aldeburgh, Slaughden 1906 (ref. 56820) | Here we see a tangled web of wood and rope in a photograph evoking the end of an era. Almost in the memory of this young lad, the sea had competed its final devastation of Slaughden. Today an active yacht club with a prestigious club house brings activity to this creek. |  Add your own Memory Add to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, the Martello Tower c1960 (ref. A28100) | This is the last and most northerly of just over a hundred Martello towers, built to keep Napoleon at bay. This one was constructed well after the invasion threat. The tide is high, and we can see how over the years it has eaten at the solid protective moat surrounding the tower. Behind us stretches a shingle bank down to Orford and beyond, where the Alde meets the sea. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, High Street 1896 (ref. 38666) | A similar view to 33362, looking towards the old market square two years later, highlights the range of architecture in this fine ancient thoroughfare. The imposing building in the left foreground is the Circulating Library, which catered for the reading requirements of an increasingly well-educated public. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, High Street c1955 (ref. A28095) | The High Street is even busier by the mid-century, reflecting the growth of service industries in Aldeburgh and the gradual return to prosperity after World War II. And yes, Aldeburgh is also famous for its fish and chips (left). The East Suffolk Hotel (the white building, centre) now houses tourist information and an art gallery. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, Beach 1929 (ref. 82969) | Were bathing machines (right) being used as late as 1929? They must have been useful as changing huts, but surely not to make sea-bathing discreet and private, as in Victorian times. Beach furniture includes the winding gear that helped to pull boats onto the shingle (centre). | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, the Fishing Boats c1955 (ref. A28048) | Something really fascinates a crowd of very curious beach-goers - not just a landing of fish. We will never know what it was! The couple in the foreground are conspicuously lacking in interest, however. Thorpeness is just visible to the north. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, Esplanade 1894 (ref. 33355) | Such open spaces as you see on the right provided room to dry and certainly to repair nets. The beach is covered with the detritus of the fishing trade - barrels, boxes and buckets, neatly juxtaposed with bathing machines for the hardy swimmers. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, Pretoria Terrace 1903 (ref. 50435) | Let us leave the sea for a while. Pretoria Terrace, a well-rutted mud and sand road, looks towards the town steps. The name of the terrace must commemorate the recently fought Boer War. Today, this is Park Lane, almost unchanged except for the inevitable loss of those decorative iron railings. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, Town Steps c1955 (ref. A28088) | The steps are still well used, carrying pedestrians, locals and explorers from the High Street to the residential area above. There seems to be considerable socialising half way up in this photograph. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, River Alde 1901 (ref. 46709) | A crowded rowing boat makes its way to the muddy shore. Stretching away to the south is the Alde, passing the Martello Tower on its left; it runs adjacent to the shore for a further ten miles, a quite remarkable feat considering that the sometimes violent sea is so close. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, High Street 1894 (ref. 33362) | Frith's photographers visited Aldeburgh's High Street over a period of sixty years; their photographs, arranged here in chronological order, are a potent record of changing times, the advance of the motor car and the fluctuations of the retail trade. The street endures, but how we use it is subject to the fortunes of the age, our evolving priorities, and the search for economic opportunity. This first view shows a remarkably deserted High Street, with evidence of horse-drawn transport. There are impressive gas lights, art nouveau in style, on the left-hand side. The shop awnings give shade from the late afternoon sunshine. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, the Parade 1906 (ref. 56816) | We are looking north at the North Lookout. C Harling catered for those visitors looking for the delights of bathing and boating, and the advertisement on his hut (right foreground) suggests that 'Holloway's Pills and Ointment are family blessings'. It would be churlish to disagree. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, Moot Hall 1894 (ref. 33360) | Built in 1540, during the post-moot age really, this red brick and half-timbered Moot Hall would have been a hotbed of commercial and legal activities during the town's most prosperous era. It has also served as a police station and a jail. It is the symbol of Aldeburgh. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, the Lifeboat and Crag Path c1965 (ref. A28143) | Life-saving eventually took precedence over salvage, and here the lifeboat 'The Alfred and Patience Cottwald' waits for the call, staring silently out towards the waves. This very poignant scene does not require words of explanation to anyone who has lived near the sea. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, Moot Hall 1894 (ref. 33359) | Little more than a shingle beach protects the Moot Hall. Once it was centrally placed in the town, but the sea has carried away a number of streets, finally pausing here. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, the Lifeboat 'City of Winchester' 1903 (ref. 50426) | There is a justifiable pride in being a lifeboat man. Here coxswain James Cable and his men proudly show off 'The City of Winchester', presented by that city, a replacement for the 'Aldeburgh' so tragically lost a few years before. This boat served until 1928 and saved forty lives. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, Victoria Road c1950 (ref. A28015) | Below Church Hill and the main street, Victoria Road provides us with our first glimpse of the sea and of the Moot Hall. The well-established hostelry the Windmill (centre) is still flourishing, though not the Cross Hotel (left). | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Aldeburgh, Church Hill 1903 (ref. 50437) | HOW pleasing to end this visual and historical journey at Aldeburgh. 'During the present century the town has considerably improved; its salubrious air and extensive beach on which there is a splendid walk of nearly two miles, having induced many families to make it their summer residence, sev- eral mansions and villa residences have sprung up with three commodious hotels. From the hill behind the town there is a splendid view of the German ocean.' This was how Morris & Co's Directory viewed Aldeburgh in 1868. Certainly the town was enjoy- ing a revival of fortune, for Crabbe's Aldeburgh of sixty years before was plainly undistinguished. The Regency fashion for sea bathing was the start of Aldeburgh's improved outlook. When Morris was writing, the railway had reached the town, and it helped to sustain the economy for century. We must not forget that there were still nearly 200 licensed fishing vessels in Aldeburgh at this time, catching herrings and sprats and sole. Between these working boats sprawled on the shingle, bathing huts were appearing; and as the Frith photographs show, the two trades lived peacefully together. Certain personalities moulded the town in its modern history. Newson Garrett was one, and the profits from his entrepreneurial skill helped to reshape Aldeburgh. He built the Jubilee Hall to celebrate Victoria's long reign, and later Benjamin Britten used the hall extensively in the first years of the now internationally-known Aldeburgh Festival. There are distinguished women too in the Aldeburgh story. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Newson's second daughter, fought tenaciously for the right to qualify as a doctor. She suc- ceeded, and later broke down another barrier when she became the first woman in Britain to hold the office of Mayor - of Aldeburgh, of course. She is a key figure in the achievement of women's rights. Like Southwold, there is a tale around almost every corner in Aldeburgh, and the images of the Frith photographers take on a special signifi- cance in helping us start to explore and under- stand the history and life of this small town on the edge of the sea. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Blythburgh, the Church and Village 1895 (ref. 36881) | As the photograph clearly illustrates, the church was gloriously over-sized and over-opulent for an area dependent on butter, cheese and a little fishing. Physical decline of the church's fabric began as early as the 16th century and accelerated through periods of poverty, damage and indifference. The gentle ministrations of 20th-century restorers have created an ambience of stunning light and simplicity. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
 Blythburgh, the Village c1955 (ref. B125004) | WE MUST NOT become too enthralled with the sea and the excitements of coastal villages and small towns. Small towns like Saxmundham and Leiston and villages such as Middleton and Westleton speak of a different life, involved in the diverse world of agriculture. Saxmundham and Leiston both claim a Saxon heritage. Certainly the former of these was a substantial settlement by the time of Domesday Book, and enjoyed market rights in the Middle Ages. It was at the centre of the farming community for centuries with regular livestock markets. The railway arrived in 1859, and included a branch line to Aldeburgh. However, one associates Saxmundham with the old turnpike and the modern A12, and here the Bell Inn could tell some tales from all the travellers who have rested there. Today the by-pass, long fought for, has brought the town a measure of peace and quiet, especially from those rumbling monsters of the road, trucks and lorries. It is ironic, perhaps, that its convenience has prompted a house- building programme, so that the population of Saxmundham has risen above 4000. A strong sense of small-town community spirit seems to exist there, we are happy to say. Leiston owes its medieval prosperity to a substantial abbey which flourished up to the Dissolution in 1537. In the 19th century, the firm of Garretts dominated the town, and the manufactures of the company, including formidable steam engines of all kinds, were sold world wide. We must not forget that Suffolk played an important part in the early and developing Industrial Revolution. Today a fascinating museum records the triumphs of Garretts of Leiston. In the 1950s, a nuclear power station was commissioned, a Magnox reactor of formidable potential, bringing new employment opportunities. Later came Sizewell B, the PWR reactor, proudly state-of-the-art; today the giant white dome stands rather incongruously where smugglers once plied a profitable trade. Both towns claim to be the hub of this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and indeed they are both useful starting points for a journey of exploration in such a special place. | Add your own MemoryAdd to your Album |
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