Alderton is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England, about six miles north of

Felixstowe Felixstowe ( ) is a port town in Suffolk, England. The estimated population in 2017 was 24,521. The Port of Felixstowe is the largest Containerization, container port in the United Kingdom. Felixstowe is approximately 116km (72 miles) northea ...

, 10 miles south-east of Woodbridge and 2 miles south of

Hollesley Hollesley is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk east of Ipswich in eastern England. Located on the Bawdsey peninsula five miles south-east of Woodbridge, in 2005 it had a population of 1,400 increasing to 1,581 ...

, on the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

coast and in the heart of the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. In 2007 its population was 430, reducing to 423 at the 2011 Census.

History

Alderton was recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

as "Alretuna". Local military defences include 3 Napoleonic

Martello towers Martello towers, sometimes known simply as Martellos, are small defensive forts that were built across the British Empire during the 19th century, from the time of the French Revolutionary Wars onwards. Most were coastal forts. They stand up ...

and various 20th-century buildings. Mill Lane marks the site of a

mill Mill may refer to: Science and technology * * Mill (grinding) * Milling (machining) * Millwork * Textile mill * Steel mill, a factory for the manufacture of steel * List of types of mill * Mill, the arithmetic unit of the Analytical Engine early ...

which stood here from 1796 until its demolition in 1956. An ancient settlement site 600m east of Cedar Court has been identified from aerial photographs, though nothing can be seen on the ground. The area around Alderton was once a stronghold of

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, and within the grounds of Alderton Hall stands an ecclesiastical building, possibly a chapel or refectory dating back to the 12th century and believed to be part of a group of buildings built by the

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North A ...

monks who controlled much of the land on the

Bawdsey Bawdsey is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, eastern England. Located on the other side of the river Deben from Felixstowe, it had an estimated population of 340 in 2007, reducing to 276 at the Census 2011. Bawdsey Manor is notable as the ...

Peninsula at that period. Alderton Hall boasts both a priest's hole (a hiding place created for dissident Catholic priests during the purge which followed the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

) and a secret passage leading to the neighbouring church of St. Andrew's. The passage was known to be haunted and so fearful were the local inhabitants that the Bishop was called in to exorcise the ghost. Whether the passageway was used by the monks as a route to the church or as hiding place for Catholic sympathizers at the time of the

has yet to be discovered, but with the coast just fifteen minutes walk away and Alderton's close proximity to the Deben Estuary at Ramsholt, this area has long been a popular landing point for Suffolk smugglers. The poet

Giles Fletcher Giles Fletcher (also known as Giles Fletcher, The Younger) (1586? – Alderton, Suffolk, 1623) was an English cleric and poet chiefly known for his long allegorical poem ''Christ's Victory and Triumph'' (1610). Life Fletcher was the young ...

was rector of St. Andrew's from 1619 until his death in 1623. Tales of smuggling abound in the area and the true story of Margaret Catchpole and her efforts to save her lover, captain of a smuggler's ship, has much of its action around the village of Alderton. It is possible that bounty was transported along Alderton Hall's secret passage. But smuggling was not simply a matter of slipping ashore with a bag of tobacco and a keg of wine. The customs men were vigilant and battles between them and the ‘free traders’ are legendary. Alderton has a village shop, a doctor's surgery, a village hall and a church without a steeple. It was destroyed in a storm in the 18th century, and the parish was too poor to replace it. The sea can be observed from the outskirts of the village, and there is a foot track which leads to it next to the village store, past the recreation ground. Between 1960 and 1991, the village was the location of a

Royal Observer Corps The Royal Observer Corps (ROC) was a civil defence organisation intended for the visual detection, identification, tracking and reporting of aircraft over Great Britain. It operated in the United Kingdom between 29 October 1925 and 31 Decembe ...

monitoring bunker, to be used in the event of a nuclear attack. It remains mostly intact.

References

External links

*
Photos of Alderton
* {{authority control Civil parishes in Suffolk Villages in Suffolk