EAST OF ENGLAND
Whether you listen for the lost bells of Dunwich or be guided by Boston’s famous Stump, let the east coast surprise you with its eerie reminders of yesteryear
Enjoy an epic adventure from Suffolk to Yorkshire, including fascinating stories of times gone by
New York’s Statue of Liberty says, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore...”
I heard the faint sound of her famous invitation while touring the coastal areas of Suffolk, Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire. There were so many fascinating echoes and ghosts of times past that, by the end of it, they seemed to characterise my tour.
As I drove through tranquil Suffolk villages, I felt I was heading along rows of life-size Lilliput Lane models. Quaint cottages have roses rambling over flint and brick walls below thatched dormer windows and roofs. There are churches and war memorials on village greens, cricket pavilions and community shops/post offices.
These villages, often with wrought-iron signs proudly displaying their names, are interspersed with nature reserves. Then, on looking and listening more closely, there are the signs and sounds of what’s gone before.
My first stop, Haw Wood Farm, northeast of Saxmundham, was within easy cycling distance of RSPB Minsmere. Prepare to find turtle doves among the trees here, too!
Minsmere (featured on BBC’s
Springwatch and Autumnwatch) is so peaceful, as if one’s stepped into a different world, with the breeze gently stirring the heather and reeds. Yet, looking beyond the birdwatchers, an enormous white dome dominates the skyline. This is Sizewell, the nuclear power station.
Seemingly just as out of place is the archaeology of war. Behind the shingle coast, where ringed plovers nest, are scores of large, squat and ugly concrete blocks lining the dunes. They are WWII antiinvasion tank traps.
As if summoned by bells, cycling north from Minsmere I passed the ruins of Greyfriars Friary. Built over 800 years ago, it’s now featured by Heritage England in its
A History of England in 100 Places list.
Just beyond is what’s left of Dunwich. Some call it ‘Britain’s Atlantis’ – and there’s a good reason why.
By the twelfth century, Dunwich was England’s sixth wealthiest town, its thriving international port busy with ships loaded with grain, salt, cloth and wool. But the sea, from which Dunwich made its fortune, claimed it, simply washing it away with a succession of enormously destructive storms and coastal erosion.
I stood in the beach car park by the Flora Tea Rooms, where the quayside once was. Underwater surveys have found the town’s outer walls extended two miles out from here. A little street of cottages leading to the shingle beach remain and, close by, are the last of the headstones from one of
Dunwich’s ‘lost’ churches; they are soon to disappear, too.
Standing on the windswept coast, it’s easy to believe the claim that, when the tide is right, you can hear the eerie toll of church bells from deep beneath the North Sea. Dunwich is certainly an atmospheric place, especially when the sea mist rolls in.
Many of Suffolk’s inland villages have quirky features or intriguing histories, which I love seeking out. About four miles from Haw Wood is Thorington, a hamlet in which St Peter’s Church is half hidden by tall trees. It has a high, round, flint tower topped by an octagonal red brick crown; it looks like a hat out of a Christmas cracker.
Churches with round towers are unusual in England, but seemingly not in Suffolk. At Theberton, an eight-mile ride away, roundtowered St Peter’s has a thatched roof. ³
In the porch is another reminder of the past – part of a Zeppelin airship shot down in 1917, killing 16 of the German crew.
Back at Haw Wood, that night brought a clear sky and magnificent starscape, not surprising as it is designated as a Dark Sky Discovery Site because of its very low levels of ambient light pollution.
I reached Long Acres Touring Park, in Lincolnshire, by way of a very undulating last mile along a dyke top. I learned to slow down in Lincolnshire as I value my suspension!
The Fens are ideal for easy cycling, though they can appear somewhat dull at times as much of the land is given over to industrialised agriculture, with huge fields of cabbages and cauliflowers, potatoes and parsnips. From Long Acres, I cycled along mainly very quiet roads towards Boston (about eight miles), crossing dykes and sluice gates reminiscent of the Netherlands. Old windmills break the horizon. Railway level crossings are frequent, too. Some, as at Sibsey, are still manned by the gatekeeper/ signalman who keeps his cottage looking very attractive.
The tower of St Botolph’s Church – known as the Stump – dominates the Boston skyline. I’d read that, in earlier times, torches were kept burning at night on the top of the tower to help guide wayfarers home. In WWII, the Stump guided RAF bomber crews home to their Lincolnshire bases. What a relief it must have been for them to see it again.
Boston is a lively market town and has a number of Georgian buildings skirting the church. Close by, the River Witham flows and information boards tell of times when Boston, like Dunwich, was a very important trading port. They proudly tell of the railway line’s construction (it still runs) and the nineteenth century prosperity it brought.
Another day took me out to the banks of The Wash through yet more fields of cabbages. Pretty cottages and grand churches dotted my route and, at RSPB Freiston Shore, I found more archaeology of war. Looking out over the wetlands are huge reinforced concrete blocks of WWII gun emplacements and pillboxes.
The last leg of my trip, during which I was to find that ‘echo’ of the Statue of Liberty, involved crossing the Humber Bridge into East Yorkshire. It’s a grand bridge and a £1.50 toll (at the time of writing) is good value, given the superb views.
Then it was north to reach the village of Great Hatfield and Wood Lake Campsite. There used to be a railway station here on the old Hull to Hornsea line; there’s still a stone platform in an overgrown cutting. The route is now part of the Trans Pennine Trail (the coast to coast trail for walkers, cyclists and horse riders) and easy to reach by bike from the campsite. I planned to go in both directions with a detour to Burton
Constable Hall (about six miles).
The hall dates back to Tudor times and it looked grand in the morning sunshine, set
back from the road in its parkland, remote from the world. At Burton Constable Hall there is evidence of the work of famous garden designer, Capability Brown. Sinuous paths wending through the park were laid to gravel, thus enabling ladies on winter walks to not muddy their long dresses. Brown was also an architect and the lakes, on two levels because of the land’s slope, were made to look like one continuous lake by Brown creating an elegant bridge of five arches where they joined. The magnificent office courtyard is Brown’s work, too.
I cycled along quiet lanes to Hornsea. It was from the elegant old railway station here that families would alight with their buckets and spades for a day out from Hull or during their annual holidays.
Those times may be long gone, yet Hornsea retains an old-fashioned seaside town’s air. Families sit on the beach, watching the sails of the offshore windfarms rotating – and there are fish and chips and candy floss to be had.
The Trans Pennine Trail, which runs west to Southport (215 miles away), begins on the seafront at Hornsea and is easily recognised by large signposts. I followed part of this trail for the five miles back to Great Hatfield and Wood Lake campsite through a green corridor of nature, spotting yellowhammers and hearing skylarks sing.
On my last day I cycled to Hull, again on the trail (about 10 miles), to arrive at Hull’s Paragon railway station. Once a very grand neoclassical building, inside is a bronze statue of one of the city’s most famous residents, the poet Philip Larkin, looking wistfully at the trains.
Larkin’s poem, Whitsun Weddings (which tells of what he saw from his railway carriage window one late spring day), is inscribed around the statue’s base. Nearby is a blue plaque; David Bowie’s 70s backing group, The Spiders from Mars, regularly travelled out to gigs from here. Now, there’s a claim to fame!
What I found most fascinating lay behind the station. A low brick building (known as the immigrant station) may appear rather ³
THE JOURNEY
From home in County Durham I drove south to near Saxmundham, then north to near Boston, then over the Humber Bridge to near Hornsea, before returning the 110 miles home. I spent 10 nights on sites in July
THE COSTS
Fuel Average 29mpg ................................................................................................ £100.80
Site fees .................................................................................................................................. £230
Tolls Humber Bridge ........................................................................................................ £1.50
Total costs .............................................................................................................. £332.30
anonymous, but its story surely is dramatic.
During the late nineteenth century, much of Europe was in turmoil and millions of people moved west. They continued to do so into the twentieth century.
In 1906 alone, 75,000 refugees and migrants from eastern Europe sailed into Hull and were held in quarantine in this building for fear of spreading disease and infection, yet they were but passing through. Upon release, they carried on west to Liverpool, bound for new opportunities and hope in the United States to take up the Statue of Liberty’s invitation.
I thought the immigration station a rather sad building now for one that held such lives of fear and courage. In that sense, the building is rather like some of the others in and around the main square. They shout of civic pride and achievement and are magnificent Victorian buildings that have, sadly, seen better days.
Just further on from the square is the Old Town and Museum Quarter. I especially wanted to find Wilberforce House on High Street, the oldest street in the city. This most unusual and attractive late sixteenth century house is where William Wilberforce, the famous campaigner against the slave trade, was born.
It’s now a museum but, like the adjacent Museum Quarter itself, which was created for Hull’s UK City of Culture status, it was closed at the time of my tour. I could see a tantalising white statue of Wilberforce behind the high brick wall.
This quarter, including High Street, has lots to explore. Some of the old warehouses are now modern apartments and show what can be done. It was quiet during my visit and my footsteps echoed along the cobbled streets between tall, elegant, old buildings.
So, yes, there are the big skies, a tranquil pace and a peace about eastern England to attract the motorhomer. For me, though, it’s about the echoes of earlier times; from those ghostly bells at Dunwich and the bombers returning to base, to a transit station for thousands of people answering the New World’s invitation to “Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”