Southwold Beach huts.jpg

Southwold is a seaside town and civil parish on the English North Sea coast in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk. It lies at the mouth of the River Blyth within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town is about south of Lowestoft, north-east of Ipswich and north-east of London, within the parliamentary constituency of Suffolk Coastal. The "All Usual Residents" 2011 Census figure gives a total of 1,098 persons for the town. The 2012 Housing Report by the Southwold and Reydon Society concluded that 49 per cent of the dwellings are used as second homes or let to holiday-makers.

History

Southwold was mentioned in ''Domesday Book'' (1086) as a fishing port, and after the "capricious River Blyth withdrew from Dunwich in 1328, bringing trade to Southwold in the 15th century", it received its town charter from Henry VII in 1489. The grant of the charter is marked by the annual Trinity Fair, when it is read out by the Town Clerk. Over following centuries, however, a shingle bar built up across the harbour mouth, preventing the town from becoming a major Early Modern port: "The shingle at Southwold Harbour, the mouth of the Blyth, is ever shifting," William Whittaker observed in 1887.

Southwold was the home of a number of Puritan emigrants to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s, notably a party of 18 assembled under Rev. Young, which travelled in the ''Mary Ann'' in 1637. Richard Ibrook, born in Southwold and a former bailiff of the town, emigrated to Hingham, Massachusetts, along with Rev. Peter Hobart, son of Edmund Hobart of Hingham, Norfolk. Rev. Hobart had been an assistant vicar of St Edmund's Church, Southwold, after graduating from Magdalene College, Cambridge. Hobart married in America Rebecca Ibrook, daughter of his fellow Puritan Richard Ibrook. The migrants to Hingham were led by Robert Peck, vicar of St Andrew's Church in Hingham and a native of Beccles.

A fire in 1659 devastated most of the town, creating spaces that were never built on again. Today this "series of varied and very delightful village greens" and the restriction of expansion by the surrounding marshes, have preserved the town's tidy appearance.

On the green just above the beach, descriptively named Gun Hill, six 18-pounder cannon commemorate the Battle of Sole Bay, fought in 1672 between English and French fleets on one side and the Dutch (under Michiel de Ruyter) on the other. The battle was bloody but indecisive and many bodies were washed ashore. Southwold Museum has a collection of mementos of the event. These cannon were captured from the Scots at Culloden and given to the town by the Duke of Cumberland, who had landed at Southwold in October 1745 having been recalled from Europe to deal with the Jacobite threat. In World War II they were prudently removed, reputedly buried for safety, and returned to their former position after hostilities.

On 15 May 1943, low-flying German fighter-bombers attacked the town and killed eleven people.

Governance

Up to 1 April 2019, Southwold was part of the Southwold and Reydon electoral ward in the Waveney District Council area. The ward population at the 2011 census was 3,680; the resident population of the neighbouring village of Reydon was more than double that of the town of Southwold. Although the town lost its independent Municipal Borough status in the Local Government reforms of 1974 and consequent incorporation in Waveney District, it continues to have an elected, non-partisan Town Council and Mayor, based at Southwold Town Hall.

With the 1 April 2019 amalgamation of the Waveney and Suffolk Coastal districts into a new East Suffolk district, Southwold became an expanded ward with Reydon and Walberswick, represented by a single councillor. Previously, the Southwold and Reydon ward, under Waveney District, elected two councillors.

Economy

Once home to several industries, Southwold's economy centres on services: hotels, holiday lets, catering and tourism. With surrounding areas largely given to agriculture, the town is an important commercial centre, with independent shops, cafés and restaurants and a market on Mondays and Thursdays, although there has been a recent trend for retail chains in food and beverages, clothing and stationery to take over the independent units.

Adnams Brewery remains in Southwold as its largest single employer. The fishing fleet is much diminished, but Southwold Harbour remains one of the main fishing ports on the Suffolk coastline. In 2012, additional fleet facilities were constructed there as part of the repair and reinstatement of the Harbour's North Wall.

Education

Primary

Southwold Primary School, adjacent to St. Edmund's Church, currently caters for children aged 2 to 11 years. As a member of the Yox Valley Partnership of Schools, it works in partnership with Yoxford and Peasenhall Primary School in Yoxford and Middleton Primary School, near Dunwich.

Secondary

The nearest secondary school for Southwold children was Reydon High School until it closed in 1990. Thereafter, most pupils were bussed to the Sir John Leman High School in Beccles or to Bungay High School. These schools have been joined by SET Beccles School, opened in 2012 and catering for pupils aged 11–16.

In line with a 2019 decision by Suffolk County Council on changes to free school transport, the default 11–16 secondary school for Southwold and Reydon students is Pakefield High School at Lowestoft.

Private education for pupils aged 2–18 is offered at Saint Felix School, an independent school in nearby Reydon.

Landmarks and features

Railway

The narrow-gauge Southwold Railway connecting the town to Halesworth ran from 24 September 1879 to 11 April 1929.

In 2007 the Southwold Railway Society submitted plans to build a new line between the parish of Easton Bavents and Henham Park, to link the town to the nearest mainline service at Halesworth. However, these plans were criticised for having no relation to the original route of the railway and for environmental and other reasons. In July 2007 the plans were rejected by Waveney and by Suffolk Coastal District Councils. In December 2008 the Society introduced a new proposal for a Railway Park, including railway track and a museum, on a site at present occupied by a car-breaker's yard, next to the local sewage works. That proposal was superseded by another, in which a short section of railway, together with other attractions and facilities, would be constructed in the village of Wenhaston, a few miles inland from Southwold and once a stop on the Southwold Railway. The plan did not meet with universal approval. In February 2016, the original Railway Park proposal for Blyth Road, Southwold, on the site of the town's former gasholders, was revived, and a new planning application was submitted and approved. Construction of the Railway Park began in 2017.

Lighthouse

Southwold lighthouse was commissioned in 1890 and automated and electrified in 1938.Southwold
, ''Trinity House''. Retrieved 29 October 2012. It stands as a prominent landmark in the centre of the town and is a Grade II listed building.The Lighthouse, Southwold
''British Listed Building''. Retrieved 29 October 2012. It is metres tall, standing metres above sea level. It is built of brick and painted white and has 113 steps around a spiral staircase.See inside a lighthouse
, ''Trinity House''. Retrieved 29 October 2012.

The lighthouse replaced three local lighthouses that were under serious threat from coastal erosion. It suffered a fire in its original oil fired lamp just six days after commissioning but survived and today operates a rotating 150-watt lamp with a range of .Application note 32064 – Southwold Conversion
, Pelangi. Retrieved 4 January 2013.Discovering Southwold
''BBC Suffolk''. Retrieved 29 October 2012.
''Southwold museum''. Retrieved 29 October 2012. Guided visits are run by the Southwold Millennium Foundation.

Brewery

Adnams brewery was established in the town by George and Ernest Adnams in 1872 with the purchase of the Sole Bay Brewery, which had been founded in 1818.Suffolk brewer Adnams starts distillery
BBC news website, 12 November 2010. Retrieved 2013-01-02.Point 7 – The Brewery
BBC Suffolk. Retrieved 2 January 2013.Our history
Adnams. Retrieved 2 January 2013. In 1890 the brewery was re-built on its current site in the centre of the town. The brewery is the town's largest employer and has been modernised and expanded in recent years, with development of an energy efficient brewery, a distribution centre in the nearby village of Reydon, and a distillery. In 2011 it received the Good Pub Guide children's series '' Grandpa in My Pocket'' was filmed in Southwold, Walberswick and Aldeburgh. Only exteriors of buildings were filmed, e.g. the Lighthouse – no acting was done there. An ITV1 drama, '' A Mother's Son'', first broadcast in September 2012, was filmed on location in Southwold.

Novels

Julie Myerson set her 2003 murder novel ''Something Might Happen'' in an unnamed Southwold – "a sleepy, slightly self-satisfied seaside town". She said that setting a murder in the car park made her feel as if she were "soiling something really good". She holidayed in the town as a child and remarked in an interview that everything else in her life had changed, but her mother and Southwold had stayed the same. She still owns a second home there.

Other books set in Southwold include Esther Freud's novel ''Sea House'' (2004), with Southwold as Steerborough. Southwold native Neil Bell in ''Bredon and Sons'' (1933) about boat-building people). ''Forgive us our Trespasses'' (1947), based on a true story of twin boys lost at sea, renames the town Senwich. '' The Bookshop'' by Penelope Fitzgerald (1978) drew on her experiences working in a Southwold bookshop in the 1950s.

An earlier book thought to be set in Southwold is ''Beside the Guns'' (1902) by the Christian author Mary Elizabeth Shipley. The German writer W. G. Sebald describes Southwold in ''The Rings of Saturn'', an account of a walk through East Anglia. Two recent additions are ''A Southwold Mystery'' (2015) and ''Shot in Southwold'' (2017) by the Herefordshire author Suzette A. Hill, both murder mysteries set in the 1950s.

George Orwell

The writer George Orwell (real name Eric Blair) spent periods as a teenager and in his thirties in Southwold, living at his parents' home. A plaque can be seen next door to what is now a fish and chip shop at the far end of the High Street.

After his departure from Eton College in December 1921, Orwell travelled to join his retired father, mother and younger sister Avril, who that month had moved to 40 Stradbroke Road, Southwold, the first of four homes in the town. In January–June 1922 he attended an educational crammer in Southwold to prepare for Indian Police Service exams and his career in Burma. In 1929, after 18 months in Paris, he returned to the family in Southwold and was based there for most of the next five years. He tutored a disabled child and a family of three boys and wrote reviews and developed ''Burmese Days''. He also spent nearly 18 months teaching in West London, until struck by a bout of pneumonia. His mother then insisted he stay at home instead of teaching. He spent the time writing ''A Clergyman's Daughter'', which is partly set in a fictionalised East Anglian town called "Knype Hill". His final visit to Southwold was in 1939.

Cultural events

The town has long hosted summer repertory theatre by various companies. For several years, Suffolk Summer Theatres have offered a varied programme of plays from July to September, staged in Southwold Arts Centre (formerly St Edmund's Hall). Every November the "Ways with Words" literature festival is held, with notable speakers appearing at various venues.

In 2014 came the inaugural Southwold Arts Festival, which was repeated in future years. It offers a mix of literature, music, film and art exhibitions, with the main events over an eight-day period in the summer, bringing entertainers of diverse backgrounds together.

In 2005, Southwold launched Suffolk's "answer to the Turner prize", the "Flying Egg" competition. This event also ran in 2006 and 2007, but not repeated in 2008.

Notable people

In alphabetical order:
*William Alwyn (1905–1985), composer, lived in Southwold for his last 25 years, with a second wife, the composer Doreen Carwithen.
* James Barker (1622–1702) was an early leader and deputy governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
*Lewis Blake (born 1946), poet and artist
* Jessie Forbes Cameron (1883–1968), a famed Scottish mathematician, died in Southwold.
* Colin Cook (born 1954), English motorcycle speedway rider
*Mark Crowe (born 1965), professional footballer with over 100 professional appearances
* Alexander Hyatt King (1911-1995), musicologist and bibliographer, founded the British Institute of Recorded Sound.
* Michael Imison (born 1935), retired television director and literary agent
*P. D. James (1920–2014), crime writer
* Mother Maribel of Wantage (1887–1970), Anglican nun and artist
*Margaret Mellis (1914–2009), a modernist artist of the St Ives School

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