Felixstowe - a day out

Felixstowe is the nearest seaside town to us and seems to be gaining in popularity judging by the number of people seen there. A couple of visits within a few days and here are some images from those visits, including my first sight of the new Ferris wheel. But to start, some images from the Languard end of Felixstowe.

Many ferries as well as container vessels are visible at virtually any time.

Looking inland there is the beautiful Nature Reserve. Here with part of the old fort in the background.

Then, of course, the busy container port. The Port of Felixstowe is the United Kingdom's largest container port, dealing with 48% of Britain's containerised trade. In 2017, it was ranked as the 43rd busiest container port in the world and 8th in Europe, with a handled traffic of 3.85 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). In 2019 it was ranked the UKs 7th busiest port - shows how it`s growing! Mind you, if you travel the A14 in the area you will see evidence of its growth with a continuous stream of container lorries.

As I said, all sorts of people visit Felixstowe these days - even The Wicker Family. Made by Tracey Barritt-Brown.

Used to be observation towers and gun emplacements guarding the entrance to Harwich

Blocks to stop all sorts of landing craft

Two types of observation for plotting ship positions - think I would trust the radar more!

The new Felixstowe Ferris wheel.

To quote from the local press: A new feature can be seen on a coastal resort's promenade after a Ferris wheel was erected. The temporary attraction, opposite Mannings Amusements in Felixstowe, Suffolk, stands at more than 34.5m (113ft) tall. Once open later this month, it will be able to hold 144 people, with six in each of its 24 gondolas.

The tourism organisation Visit Felixstowe said it was a "great feature" for the town.

East Suffolk Council approved plans for the observation wheel on Sea Road in June. At the time, it said it would provide an "additional attraction to the tourism offer at the resort, helping to support the wider economy".

Obviously, we all had to have a ride and enjoy the views from the top.

Colourful beach huts on the promenade

View from under the pier

Pier from the nearby beach. Where was everybody? - all on the pier it seemed when we went to try the slot machines.

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Boxford - memories.

Today I made a visit to the village where I used to live - Boxford in Suffolk. My aim on this visit, was to take a few photographs of the lovely Church.

The origins of the Boxford church are unclear, but there is indirect reference to it in the Domesday Book (1086) via an entry for the Manor of Kodenham, which lay in what is now the Parish of Boxford. In that reference the church is recorded as having 20 acres of Glebe Land, an area which remained constant right up to the twentieth century. By 1286 the village is recorded as Boxford and paying dues to the Abbots of Bury St. Edmunds. The boundaries with the parishes of Groton and Edwardstone, to the north and west respectively, used to run to within a few meters of the northern boundary of the churchyard. The church therefore probably served the scattered populations to the south. However, with the growth of the wool industry, Boxford expanded north across the River Box into the area now occupied by Broad Street and the bottom end of Swan Street.

The north porch is from the 14th century and is quite rare in that it is almost entirely made of timber. Now much worn, and showing its age, the porch is nonetheless a rather moving testament to the longevity of English oak!

This wooden porch has been called one of the most interesting 14th-century porches still in existence. It is not spectacular, but rather an interesting example of rural ecclesiastical architecture in the medieval period.

The south porch is regarded as one of the county's grandest 15th century affairs, in bright stone. Six elegant niches line the top, flanking a larger seventh. In the spandrels are an angel and the Blessed Virgin, depicting the Annunciation.

The south door of St Mary's

There are medieval frescos of Angels at the incarnation above the chancel arch and of Edmund King and Martyr in the Lady Chapel. Sadly, all the others have been lost during redecoration of various eras, especially the 1970s.

Perhaps the most memorable feature of the nave is the striking 17th century font cover, which opens out like the one at Bramford. Inside are painted ribbons with quotes from St John's Gospel. Two are taken from Nicodemus' question and Christ's answer. The other is from the Last Supper, Christ's answer when Peter baulks at Christ washing his feet.

A winter image of St Mary`s Church

Boxford village sign is an interesting assortment. At the top we have two apples and cereal heads. The apples relate to the fruit farm and the Copella brand name. The cereals, for farming in the area. Below is the church with a tree and the River Box from which Boxford got its name. The sheep represent Boxford during the wealthy times of the wool trade. The smock mill with annular sails was short-lived as they were destroyed in 1881 after only 20 years' service and were replaced by shuttered sails with which we are more familiar.

The watermill was located very close to the village centre. The man with the motorbike complete with lion in the sidecar, is Tornado Smith of Wall of Death fame. He lived at the White Hart Inn with his parents. He was well known in the thirties for riding the wall of Death with a lioness called Briton on the motorcycle. The lioness is buried in front of the White Hart.

A couple of houses opposite the church. These are just two of the many beautiful houses in Boxford.

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Groton - The Winthrop legacy

John Winthrop was famous as the leader and founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in what is now the USA. He was born on 12 January 1588 to wealthy parents Adam and Anne Winthrop in Edwardstone. In 1613, when John was twenty-five, his father transferred the family holdings in Groton to him, so then he became Lord of the Manor at Groton.

He was a lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the second major settlement in New England following Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of colonists from England in 1630 and served as governor for 12 of the colony's first 20 years. His writings and vision of the colony as a Puritan "city upon a hill" dominated New England colonial development, influencing the governments and religions of neighboring colonies in addition to those of Massachusetts.

The Puritan population in England had been growing for several years leading up to this time. They disagreed with the practices of the Church of England, whose rituals they viewed as superstitions. An associated political movement attempted to modify religious practice in England to conform to their views, and King James I wished to suppress this growing movement. Nevertheless, the Puritans eventually gained a majority in Parliament. James' son Charles came into direct conflict with Parliament and viewed them as a threat to his authority. He temporarily dissolved Parliament in 1626, and again the next year, before dissolving it permanently in March 1629. The King's imposition of Personal Rule gave many Puritans a sense of hopelessness regarding their future in that country, and many prepared to leave it permanently for life in New England, and a wealthy group of leaders obtained a royal charter in March 1629 for the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

A fleet of five ships had departed a month previously for New England that included approximately 300 colonists led by Francis Higginson. However, the colony leaders and the bulk of the colonists remained in England for the time being to plan more thoroughly for the success of the new colony. In October 1629, the group who remained in England elected John Winthrop to be Governor of the Fleet and the Colony. Over the ensuing winter, the leaders recruited a large group of Puritan families, representing all manner of skilled labor to ensure a robust colony.

The initial group (Arbella and her three escorts) departed Yarmouth, Isle of Wight on April 8, the remainder following in two or three weeks. Seven hundred men, women, and children were distributed among the ships of the fleet.

The Winthrop Fleet was a well-planned and financed expedition that formed the nucleus of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were not the first settlers of the area; there was an existing settlement at Salem, started in about 1626 and populated by a few hundred Puritans governed by John Endicott, most of whom had arrived in 1629. Winthrop superseded Endicott as Governor of the Colony upon his arrival in 1630. The flow of Puritans to New England continued for another ten years, during a period known as the Great Migration.

Groton Place - Home of the Winthrop family.

The Winthrop family made their home at Groton Place, now converted, along with its' Barns, into six homes.

Much of the church at Groton has been restored with funds donated by American Winthrop's and their friends. For that reason, the interior lacks some of the historic interest found in many medieval churches in this area of Suffolk, though it is, it must be said, in a generally good state of repair thanks to the American donations!

In a land of flint churches, Groton's church stands out more than most due to its honest simplicity. St Bartholomew's has interior walls of a fine Suffolk pink.

Needs no explanation!

General view of the church down the nave looking East over the font

A window in memory of John Saville-Halifax (1804-1872) and his wife and daughter. He was rector here in 1865.

The large window of the 1875 pairs Moses handing out the Ten Commandments with Christ's Sermon on the Mount. It reads - In Memory of John Winthop Lord of the Manor of Groton 1618, first Governor of Massachusetts and Founder of Boston in New England 1630

The Groton Winthrop black mulberry is one of the oldest in Britain, thought to have been planted in about 1550 by Adam Winthrop, grandfather of John Winthrop. The Winthrop family maintains contact with the village and its historic tree. The tree is in a field known as The Croft, protected by a wooden fence.

Groton Hall, which is adjoining the church

John Winthrop held his first court as Justice of the Peace at Groton Hall in 1609. He became Lord of the Manor in 1618

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Bramford - and the sad story of baby Innocent

As I had not seen this `local` church, this trip was just to explore. However, it turned out to have a sad twist to its story. I parked my car on the south side, near the vicarage, as it turned out. So firstly, some pictures of this south side of the building.

"Another Suffolk church that can probably be associated with the group identified by the late Birkin Haward as having been part-built by the same master mason, 'Hawes of Occold', fl. 1410-1440."

I have read that this church's style is Perpendicular Gothic. What are the characteristics of Perpendicular Gothic style - I wondered!

Apparently, the style was concerned with creating rich visual effects through decoration and was characterized by a predominance of vertical lines in stone window tracery, enlargement of the windows to great proportions. Hence the view of the windows above, which demonstrates the emphasis on vertical lines.

The late fourteenth century north porch may have been added at the same time as the figure and animal pinnacles were added to the nave and north aisle, (see images below) perhaps in 1468, when a bequest was left for work 'to the body of the church'.  It seems virtually certain that before this porch was built, the principal entrance to the church had been from the south, for the north doorway (inside the porch) is modest and off-centre, and clearly not designed to be part of a grand entrance.

Along the battlements of the north aisles, statues on pinnacles stand like guardians. These are unusual in East Anglia. Some of them are allegorical, some theological, some perhaps mythical or heraldic. They are hard to photograph, or even to see clearly, on a sunny day because they are on the north side of the church, and in any case, they are eroded by half a millennium of soft Suffolk rain and encrusted with lichen. One is clearly an ape in a monk's habit examining a urine flask. This can also be seen on the screen at Suffield in Norfolk. It is a satire on contemplative orders. The ape here is chained, suggesting that he is tied to his friary. Two others are evangelistic symbols of St Matthew and St Mark. One of the strangest is a woodwose, the wild man of the Suffolk woods. He is commonly found in late medieval carvings and often he carries a club, but the one here also appears to be wearing a crown. There is a gryphon and a chained beast, and a curious animal that might be a hare or a sheep, though both are unusual in late medieval East Anglian stonework.

I managed to photograph the above two and in the previous photo you can make out several of them dotted along the battlement.

A delightful and rare reminder of one of the priorities of those years of ferment immediately after the Reformation survives inscribed and painted on the most westerly pillar in the south arcade. It reads:

Remember ye pore
The Scripture doth record
What to them is geven
Is lent unto the Lord
1591

It would have been above a poor box, and indeed, it is still above a 20th Century box today.

The church's most impressive internal feature is the three-bay stone screen filling the space beneath the chancel arch. This is thirteenth century work but the two large, encircled quatrefoils piercing the spandrels and the castellated stone rail on the top are probably Victorian 'improvements', probably by the designer of the chancel arch above - Ewan Christian (1814-95),

The reredos by W D Caroe is a good example of turn-of-the-last-century seriousness. It sits beneath a familiarly stodgy window by Kempe & Co, typical of their early 20th Century style. The bulky choir stalls, also by Caroe, have been removed from the chancel and placed in the south aisle. The chancel must have felt very cramped when they were still in situ. I think that the current layout is very welcoming, and I was only too happy to tell a lady outside - only to find she was the Rectors wife!

A more recent, and I am afraid more traumatic, incident in Bramford's long history is remembered by a small grave marker along the path to the south of the church. Resting here, a baby boy, one of God's children, reads the inscription. The area of woodland east of the church beside the river is known locally as the Marshes. On Sunday 11th March 1984 some teenagers were sheltering from the rain in the Marshes under a tree. Bored, one of them kicked over an old car petrol tank which had been dumped. Underneath, they found the body of a baby boy. The pathologist's report revealed that the child had been about a week old and had not died of natural causes. The little boy was buried in Bramford churchyard. An exhaustive police investigation was unable to solve the mystery.

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Bawdsey - Long exposure and sunset

Bawdey Quay is a lovely spot. It is situated at the mouth of the river Deben which separates Bawdsey from nearby Felixstowe. Lots of boats and just a lovely spot to sit and soak up the sea air and sunshine!

It has quite a history too. Radar was developed and first tested in Bawdsey between the two World Wars. Today you can visit the place where much of the groundbreaking work in radar technology took place.

In February 1936, the research scientists occupied Bawdsey Manor House and the stables and outbuildings were converted into workshops. 240ft wooden receiver towers and 360ft steel transmitter towers were built and Bawdsey became the first Chain Home Radar Station. On September 24, 1937, RAF Bawdsey became the first fully operational radar station in the world

After WW2 Bawdsey was used as an RAF base through the Cold War until the 1990’s when the Bloodhound surface-to-air missile was the last ‘tenant’ in this base. On 31st May 1990, the Bloodhound force ceased operations and in June all the missiles were withdrawn to RAF West Raynham. The RAF Ensign was lowered for the last time on the 25th of March 1991 and the station closed on the 31st of March. It is now owned by PGL Travel Ltd which is a company founded in 1957 and is a provider of various school activity courses and summer camps for children in the United Kingdom.

Until PGL purchased it, Bawdsey was a renowned international school as well as a family home and has many excellent existing facilities as a result.

It opened the centre fully in 2018 after adding to all the existing facilities and investing heavily in improvements to create an even brighter and bolder Bawdsey Manor, with even more to offer our guests. A new dining room, the creation of en-suite bedrooms, the construction of many additional new PGL activity bases and a lake in the grounds have all transformed it into one of our most exciting adventure centres.

Our visit this evening was with Gill Moon to hone our skills in long exposures and hopefully catch a sunset. It didn't look too promising at first but here are a few images that I did manage.

This first image illustrates what a thirty second exposure does to water. Makes it look very milky - which was the whole idea.

A shorter exposure gives more form to the water.

Bawdsey Manor from the beach

Bawdsey with its many small boats and rain in the background!

Bawdsey as the sun set. Not the best sunset but makes a picture. A pleasant evening with a few images to take away with me.

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