The Place To Be Tonight
I am not far away from Stansfield, a small village between Haverhill and Bury St. Edmunds.
What is unique about the village is that its pub, the Compasses, is owned and run by a Dutch couple.
We went on Friday and it looks like tonight will be the night for a visit, especially as they look like they can cope with my dietary requirements and serve Aspalls Cyder.
Tomorrow is Darrell’s Day
The 4th of July means a lot to Americans, but it also means a lot to us here in Suffolk, as on that day in 1667, Nathaniel Darrell and his brave marines at Landguard Fort near Felixstowe, repulsed the last attempted invasion of the United Kingdom.
If he hadn’t been successful, we might all be speaking Dutch!
The Levington Ship
On the way back from Felixstowe, we stopped for a glass of Aspalls at the Levington Ship.
The Levington Ship
We actually arrived at the time I needed to take my Warfarin, so I asked the landlord for a glass of tapwater. IT was no problem.
But then you’d expect that sort of sdervice from a pub that serves beer in the traditional Suffolk way by gravity.
Gravity Fed Adnams
Landguard Fort
Felixstowe was the last place in the UK, to be invaded by foreign forces, when the Dutch tried to capture Landguard Fort in 1667. They failed due to the efforts of Nathaniel Darrell. That is why the 2nd of July is Darrell’s Day in Suffolk.
It is a place well worth a visit with a reasonable entry charge, lots of things to see and an excellent audio commentary.
I also found it a good place to try out my waling and climbing skills after a stroke. In only a couple of places did I need a helping hand.
A Walk at Felixstowe Ferry
Afterwards we had a pleasant walk in the sun along the sea wall towards the golf course and the Martello Towers.
There are some more pictures of Felixstowe Ferry here, taken in worse weather.
Felixstowe Ferry
As a child, I spent a lot of time at Felixstowe Ferry. Yesterday, I was going to the dentist in the town, so before, we went to have lunch and a stroll there. We also had an excellent lunch in the Ferry Boat Inn.
Ferry Boat Inn, Felixstowe Ferry
The pub looks very similar to how I remember it as a child, but then it was a Tolly Cobbold pub, and now it serves mainly Adnams. But the lettering on the wall is still the same.
Inside is rather different, as the barrels of beer are no longer stacked behind the bar and there is a restaurant. But I have a feeling that the clock on the wall is the same, as I can remember sitting there with my father and Pete, who was an usher at my weeding to C in 1968.
Today, we had a glass of Aspalls each, with sea bass for me and proper fish and chips for my companion. Note that the sea bass was wild, not farmed, and apparently landed at Colchester
Lunch at The Ferry Boat Inn, Felixstowe Ferry
They knew their gluten rules too!
It does seem that this part of East Suffolk is doing its best to fight its way out of the recession, by doing things well.
A Coeliac-Friendly Pier
As I walked down Southwold Pier, I saw this notice.
A Coeliac-Friendly Pier
If you can’t read it, it says that on the first Saturday of evry month, gluten-free fish and chips are served in the restaurants. I went to investigate and found that they had Aspalls on draught, coeliac-friendly crisps and that they always have gluten-free cakes available.
If you check the Pier’s web site, they have a Coeliac-UK logo on the front smd here‘s details of their fish and chips.
Perhsps we’re not so silly here in Suffolk.
Quantum Tunnelling Telescope
This quantum tunelling telescope is on Southwold Pier
Quantum Tunnelling Telescope
Find out how it was made here.
The Brewing Capital of the World
Milwaukee in Wisconsin claims, this but they don’t produce beer, but some form of pasturised chemical fizz, that has about as much in common with real beer, as CAMRA would know it, as petrol has with the finest Scotch or Irish Whisky.
I should say though that a Suffolk friend, once claimed that the sign on the outskirts of Milwaukee, proclaiming the city to be the brewing capital of the world, had been painted with a Chad and the phrase “Wot About Southwold”. I suspect, if it had, he’d done it himself.
Southwold is a sleepy seaside resort on the Suffolk coast, with a pier, a nice beach,a lighthouse, proper beach huts, restaurants and pubs and of course Adnams brewery.
After Dunwich, we travelled a few kilometres up the coast and parked by the pier, before walking along the front and having a coffee.
On To Dunwich
After Sizewell, we moved on to Dunwich, a city that disappeared into the North Sea. Read The Lost City of Dunwich by Nicholas Comfort for more details.
These days, Dunwich is just a beach, some ruins and one street with a good pub and a very good museum, that cost just a pound to enter. Surely, it must be one of the best little museums in East Anglia, if not in the whole of the UK. But then Suffolk people don’t do things by halves or wait for large amounts of Government subsidy. They just get on with it and use their own resources to do what is best.
Main Street, Dunwich
The Anonymous Widower 