Aldeburgh

Aldeburgh is a coastal town in the English county of Suffolk. Located on the River Alde, the town is notable for its Blue Flag shingle beach and fisherman huts where freshly caught fish are sold daily, and the Aldeburgh Yacht Club. The internationally renowned Aldeburgh Festival of arts, which takes place at nearby Snape Maltings, was created in 1948 by the resident and acclaimed composer Benjamin Britten.

A popular weekend destination, with second homes making up roughly a third of its residential property, particular attractions are the ancient Moot Hall (where the town council still meets), Napoleonic-era Martello tower to the south, sheltered yachting marina at Slaughden, and two family run shops serving fish and chips, one of which is often cited as among the best fish and chip shops in the UK.

History
Alde Burgh means "old fort" although this structure, along with much of the Tudor town, has now been lost to the sea. In the 16th century, Aldeburgh was a leading port, and had a flourishing ship-building industry. Sir Francis Drake's ships Greyhound and Pelican (later renamed Golden Hind) were both built in Aldeburgh. The flagship of the Virginia Company, the Sea Venture is believed to have been built there in 1608. When the River Alde silted up and was unable to accommodate larger ships, the area went into decline. Aldeburgh survived principally as a fishing village until the nineteenth century, when it became popular as a seaside resort. Much of its distinctive and whimsical architecture derives from this period. The river is now home to a yacht club and a sailing club.

Geography
Aldeburgh is on the North Sea coast and is located around 87 mi north-east of London, 20 mi north-east of Ipswich and 23 mi south of Lowestoft. Locally it is 4 mi south of the town of Leiston and 2 mi south of the village of Thorpeness. It lies just to the north of the River Alde with the narrow shingle spit of Orford Ness all that stops the river meeting the sea at Aldeburgh - instead it flows another 9 mi to the south-west.

The beach is mainly shingle and wide in places with fishing boats able to be drawn up onto the beach above the high tide. The beach was awarded the Blue flag rural beach award in 2005 and becomes narrower at the neck of Orford Ness. The shingle bank allows access to the Ness from the north, passing a Martello tower and two yacht clubs at the site of the former village of Slaughden. Aldeburgh was flooded during the North Sea flood of 1953 and flood defences around the town were strengthened as a result.

The town is within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and has a number of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and nature reserves in the local area. The Alde-Ore Estuary SSSI covers the area surrounding the river from Snape to its mouth, including the whole of Orford Ness. This contains a number of salt marsh and mudflat habitats. The Leiston-Aldeburgh SSSI extends from the northern edge of the town to cover a range of habitats including grazing marsh and heathland. This includes Thorpeness Mere and the North Warren RSPB reserve an area of wildlife and habitat conservation and nature trails run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Two smaller geological SSSI units are also found on the southern edges of the town. Aldeburgh Brick Pit is a 0.84 ha site showing a clear stratigraphy of Red Crag deposits above Corralline Crag. It is considered a significant site for demonstrating the stratigraphy of Red Crag. Aldeburgh Hall Pit is a shallow pit of 0.8 ha area. The site features a section of Corralline Crag and is considered to be one of the best sites in Britain for Neogene fauna.

It has a number of churches including the Anglican pre-Reformation church of St Peter and St Paul and the Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Peter.

Governance


Aldeburgh has its own Town Council and is within the Suffolk Coastal Non-metropolitan district. Aldeburgh ward, which includes Thorpeness and some other smaller communities, had a population of 3225 in the 2011 census. The mean age of the inhabitants was 55 and the median age 61.

It is also within the Suffolk Coastal parliamentary constituency and is represented by Therese Coffey and had from 1983 to 2010 been represented by John Gummer. It is often regarded as a safe seat for the Conservative Party.

Aldeburgh was a Parliamentary Borough from 1571, and returned two Members of Parliament, the right to vote being vested in the freemen of the town. Latterly it was considered a rotten borough, and lost its representation in the Great Reform Act of 1832.

Aldeburgh was the first British town to elect a female mayor: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, in 1908. Her father, Newson Garrett, was mayor in 1889.

At the age of 15, Sam Wright became Aldeburgh's town crier and mace bearer – the youngest in the world.

Transport
Aldeburgh is linked to the main A12 at Friday Street in Benhall by the A1094 road. The B1122 links the town to Leiston. Bus services link the town to Leiston and onward southward to Woodbridge and Ipswich and northward to Halesworth.

The nearest rail link is Saxmundham railway station on the East Suffolk Line. This provides an hourly service to Ipswich and Lowestoft. Aldeburgh railway station opened in 1860 as the terminus of the Aldeburgh Branch Line from Saxmundham. The station was closed in 1966 as part of the Beeching Axe.

Moot Hall
The Aldeburgh Moot Hall is a Grade I listed timber-framed building which has been used for council meetings for over 400 years. The Town Clerk's office is still there and it also houses the local museum. It was built in about 1520 and altered in 1654. The brick and stone infilling of the ground floor is later. The hall was restored and the external staircase and gable ends were rebuilt in 1854-5, under the direction of R. M. Phipson, the chief architect of the Diocese of Norwich, in which Aldeburgh then stood. There are 64 other listed historic buildings and monuments in the town.

Martello Tower
A unique quatrefoil Martello Tower stands at the isthmus leading to the Orford Ness shingle spit. It is the largest and northernmost of 103 English defensive towers built between 1808 and 1812 to resist a Napoleonic invasion. The Landmark Trust now runs it as holiday apartments.

The Martello Tower is the only surviving building of the fishing village of Slaughden, which had been washed away by the North Sea by 1936. Near the Martello Tower at Slaughden Quay are the barely visible remains of the fishing smack Ionia. It had become stuck in the treacherous mud of the River Alde, and was then used as a houseboat. In 1974 it was burnt, as it had become too unsafe.

Fort Green Mill


A four-storey windmill at the southern end of the town has been converted to residential use. It was built in 1824 and converted into a house in 1902.

WW2 Tank Trap
A WW2 tank trap can be seen next to Slaughden Road.

The Scallop
On Aldeburgh's beach, a short distance north of the town centre, stands a sculpture, The Scallop, dedicated to Benjamin Britten, who used to walk along the beach in the afternoons. Created from stainless steel by Suffolk-based artist Maggi Hambling, it stands 15 ft high, and was unveiled in November 2003. The piece is made up of two interlocking scallop shells, each broken, the upright shell being pierced with the words: "I hear those voices that will not be drowned", which are taken from Britten's opera Peter Grimes. The sculpture is meant to be enjoyed both visually and tactilely, and people are encouraged to sit on it and watch the sea. Approached along the road from the Thorpeness direction it has a totally different silhouette appearing to be a knight on a rearing charger.

The sculpture is controversial in the local area, with some local residents considering it spoiling the beach. It has been vandalised with graffiti and paint on thirteen occasions and whilst there have been petitions to have it removed, petitions in support of the sculpture have garnered similar numbers of signatories.

Notable people

 * The poet George Crabbe was born in Aldeburgh in 1754 and the town forms a loose basis for his poems The Village and The Borough. The latter contains the tale of a fisherman named Peter Grimes, on which Benjamin Britten's opera was based.
 * Annie Hall Cudlip the novelist was born in Aldeburgh in 1838.
 * Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847–1929), suffragist and feminist, was born in Aldeburgh.
 * Benjamin Britten became a resident of the town in 1942. In 1948, along with Eric Crozier and Peter Pears, he founded the Aldeburgh Festival. Britten died in Aldeburgh in 1976. Pears, Britten's lifelong partner, also died in Aldeburgh in 1986. They are buried alongside each other in the churchyard of St Peter and St Paul's Church in the town.
 * Joan Cross, English soprano and theatre director (1900–1993), who created several roles in Britten's operas, is buried in the same cemetery.
 * Songwriter Peter Sinfield, founding member and lyricist for progressive rock act King Crimson, currently resides in Aldeburgh.
 * Rt Revd Sandy Millar, former Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton and co-founder of the Alpha Course, currently lives in Aldeburgh.
 * Former Manchester United and Ireland midfielder, Roy Keane became an Aldeburgh resident in 2009 following his appointment as manager of Ipswich Town.
 * Isabella Summers, the songwriter, producer, remixer, and member of a British band, Florence and the Machine, originated in Aldeburgh.
 * M. R. James was a regular visitor to his maternal grandmother who lived in Aldeburgh until her death in 1870. James went as far as to set one of his stories, "A Warning to the Curious" in a disguised version of Aldeburgh which he called Seaburgh; many of the towns landmarks such as the Martello tower and White Lion hotel feature.
 * Composer Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian lives in Aldeburgh on the border with Thorpeness.

In recent years the town and region have attracted a number of artists including Young British Artists members Sarah Lucas, who now lives in the former residence of Benjamin Britten, Abigail Lane, Gary Hume and Gavin Turk.

Culture
Outside the town, the Snape Maltings is the venue for the Aldeburgh Festival held every June.

The town of Aldeburgh or "Owlbarrow" is the setting of a series of children's illustrated books centred on Orlando (The Marmalade Cat) written by Kathleen Hale, who spent holidays in the town. Many of the illustrations in the books feature landmarks in the town, most notably the Moot Hall. The town also features prominently in the thriller Cross of Fire written by novelist Colin Forbes, as well as the nearby villages of Dunwich, Snape Maltings.

Aldeburgh is also notable for its fish and chip shop. Owned and run by the Cooney family since the 1970s, it has been described in The Times as "possibly the finest on the east coast".

The Suffolk Craft Society hold an annual themed exhibition in the Peter Pears Gallery over July and August. This is the annual showcase for the finest and most recent work made by members.

Aldeburgh Carnival takes place annually in August, with a continuous history dating back to at least 1892 and possibly as far back as 1832 when "Ye Olde Marine Regatta" was mentioned. The focal point of the carnival today is the Carnival Procession featuring locals and visitors dressed in home-made costumes and on floats, often with a topical or local theme. In the evening, a parade with Chinese lanterns and a firework display are traditional. The Procession has been led for over 30 years by Chief Marshal Trevor Harvey, also a Carnival Committee member for over 50 years.

James Herbert based his book The Jonah in the area, using several names represented in the local area for characters including Slaughden.

Aldeburgh appears as a location in Joseph Freeman's novel Arcadia Lodge, where it is referred to as "Seaburgh", as it is in the M. R. James story "A Warning To The Curious".

Fishing
Aldeburgh is notable for its line fishing for amateur anglers; it has been described as "a great spot for bass, flounders, sole, dabs, cod, whiting and eels". However, the East Anglian Daily Times says "countless years of commercial over-fishing has all but destroyed many of our [Suffolk's] offshore sea fisheries" and traditional, sustainable inshore fishing is under threat, with likely knock-on effects for the coastal community. Local fishermen have featured in the "Fish Fight" campaigns of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Greenpeace, supporting small-scale inshore fishermen.