Dunwich Heath

10 Fri Jul 2026

Posted by Clare Pooley in Days out, nature reserve, plants, Rural Diary, seashore, wild birds, wild flowers

Tags

birds, bracken, Dunwich Heath, heathland, kittiwakes, Lowestoft, plants, scones, seashore, Sizewell, Suffolk

Richard, Elinor and I went to Dunwich Heath on Tuesday afternoon. We had originally thought about going in the late morning and having some lunch in the National Trust café there. However, it became too hot and the thought of wandering about on the beach with the sun beating down on us and no shelter and us beginning to look like characters in one of those survival films (you know what I mean – crawling on all fours, blistered parched lips, savouring the last drips from an empty water-bottle, vultures circling overhead etc. – replace vultures with seagulls) prompted us to leave at 3.00pm.

Our car in the carpark

The carpark was pleasantly uncrowded; I took my NT membership card to the office to get our free parking ticket and while Richard went back to the car to fetch Elinor and reassure her that the café was still open, I had a chat with the volunteer on duty and found out he had recently moved to Saxmundham and had a friend who had recently moved to Rumburgh; I also got a recommendation for a restaurant in Southwold. I think he was a little bored and needed to talk.

The former coastguard cottages now house the National Trust café and other offices as well as holiday accomodation for visitors.

We went into the café and all had a scone with jam. Richard and I had clotted cream with ours but Elinor didn’t. Richard and I had a pot of tea between us but Elinor didn’t as she doesn’t drink tea or coffee. She had wanted a fruit juice but they only had water or fizzy drinks. She, like me, doesn’t like fizzy drinks and she had brought a bottle of water with her. I quickly walked past the shelves of second-hand books on our way out. I must not be tempted into buying yet more books!

Walking down to the sea

We made our way to the path down through the heathland to the sea. Everything was looking a little dry but there was this wonderful smell of hot bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) which took me back to childhood camping holidays. Admittedly, we didn’t often smell hot bracken then, it was usually wet bracken but that has a lovely smell too. Quoting from Richard Mabey’s ‘Flora Britannica’ “…for those who have lived in brackeny places, its sharp almond scent and the first splashes of yellow on its fronds in autumn can evoke powerful feelings”. All this in spite of it being toxic if eaten and its spores being carcinogenic! Also, I’m not sure that I think of almonds when I smell bracken.

I think that the structure on the horizon is part of one of the two new solar farms being constructed in this area.

A few miles to the east of the solar farms and nearer to the sea is Sizewell.

The concrete block at the rear is what is left of Sizewell A nuclear power station, which is slowly being dismantled. The white dome is Sizewell B nuclear power station which is still going strong after 30 years. The evidence of work going on nearest to us is the construction of Sizewell C. This construction (as well as the construction of the solar farms) has upset a lot of people and the mess to the countryside and disruption to traffic on the A12 (the main A road through the area) is to be seen and experienced to be believed. However, as well as bringing sorely-needed employment to the area and a reliable source of electricity eventually (I won’t go into the pros and cons of nuclear power here), the long-awaited improvements to the A12 and the by-passing of villages who have suffered very heavy traffic through their centres for decades is almost complete. This was part of the deal with tthe nuclear power company. There has also been work on a railway branchline. There are other issues involved but I won’t go into these at present.

Not a very good photo of some Common ragwort(Senecio jacobaea ) and a Spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare )

Some Bell heather (Erica cinerea) and Gorse prickles (Ulex europaeus)

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Here we are on the beach. How wonderful the cool breeze was!

Every time we visit the seaside we look out for ‘a literal seal’. To explain: we were at Southwold a couple of years ago on a blustery afternoon and we heard an excited small boy shouting to his parents that he had seen ‘a literal seal’. And there the seal was; just a couple of metres off-shore, bobbing about on the heavy swell and holding an enormous fish between its flippers which it was eating with relish.

Dunwich beach. In the distance you may be able to see an object in the water with three spikes. Not Neptune’s trident, but the place where work is being done to build a desalination tank and other facilities for Sizewell C. Once the work has been done there will be no evidence of anything on the surface.

I hope you enjoyed this quick video of the sea.

We watched what we believe were terns flying over the sea, every now and then dipping into the water to catch something and flying on again.

This strange-looking thing is a kittiwake nest platform.

We have a colony of Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) in Suffolk.They arrived in Lowestoft some time ago and began nesting on buildings in the harbour area. They then moved into the town and to the Lowestoft peoples’ delight (hah!) they began nesting on roofs and window-sills. Conservationists are trying to encourage the birds to move out of the town into permanent accomodation out at sea. I’m not sure how well this is going.

If you had a kittiwake nesting on your bedroom window-sill this is what you would hear from 3.30-4.00am until sunset (after 9.00pm) every day, all day, until the chicks are fledged. Not to mention the mess and the smell!

Elinor

Beach flora: bracken, ragwort, heather and sea kale

Looking up to the top of the cliff where there are Sand martin (Riparia riparia) nests.

Here I was trying to zoom in on the nests with my phone. All you can see clearly though, is the layer of pebbles above the sand and a drainage pipe projecting from the cliff face.

This is another partial failure. I had a problem with the sun which was on a level with the top of the cliff though it is possible to see a few of the holes in which the birds nest.

Sea kale (Crambe maritime)

Other areas fenced off at the foot of the cliff were to help the sea kale and other shingle plants establish themselves on the beach without people walking over them. I think it absolutely amazing that plants can happily grow and thrive in a heap of pebbles and some sand. A gardener spends so long enriching soil to nurture his/her precious vegetables and flowers, and here is a relative of a cabbage growing in shingle.

Here is Richard wending his way back up the path towards the carpark.

When we got back up to the car I went off for a couple of minutes on my own to look at the heathland further away from the coast.

Somebody who once lived in the coastguards cottages must have planted this vine. It looks like a Russian vine (Fallopia baldschuanica ) a ‘mile-a-minute vine though the leaves are not quite the heart-shape that they should be if that is so.

A rather stunted pine tree. Probably a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris)

Here are its new cones.

A much better picture of ragwort flowers.

There were ladybirds everywhere on the heath and on the beach. I was a little wary of them as they tend to bite in hot weather.

The National Trust like to put signs up everywhere. This one warns of the danger of falling off the cliff and/or the crumbling cliff.

A weather station.

I will leave you with a last look at the heath.

The heather was looking good and was at its peak. Bell heather comes into flower a little earlier than the other heaths and Common heather (Calluna vulgaris), also known as Ling.

Sunday Walk

11 Tue Nov 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, domestic animals, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, walking

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

All Saints church, autumn leaf colour, barn owl, bryony berries, field views, guelder rose, hawthorn berries, Lowestoft, muddy lanes, Remembrance Day, spindle berries, St Margaret South Elmham, St Nicholas South Elmham church, stress, stress management, walking

Stressed!

Yesterday evening E and I went to Lowestoft to attend a stress management course. Stress in all it manifestations was described, its causes and what keeps it going. We were told how it affects our thoughts, actions and body and why it affects people in different ways. We have been given a relaxation CD and a little homework to do for next week. This is a rolling course; as soon as this one finishes it starts all over again with a different set of people. There is a day-time course running at the same time as this in Great Yarmouth on a Thursday morning. There are courses like this being run all over the country all the time. The room we were in was full of people of different ages – a few had brought companions like me – but most of us there were sufferers from stress of one type or another. Research done a few years ago states that in this country 4 out of 10 people suffer from stress. This figure is already out of date – anxiety and stress are on the rise.

Lowestoft is affected, like most British seaside towns, by high unemployment especially in the winter. The recent down-turn in the economy has made a bad situation worse. Shops have had to shut and the buildings are still empty or ‘pound shops’ and pawn shops have replaced them. However, it looks better cared-for than Great Yarmouth and a lot has been done recently to brighten it up and improve the road system. As well as being a traditional seaside resort Lowestoft developed firstly as a fishing port, mainly herrings, and when that declined it became, with Great Yarmouth, the base of the oil and gas exploitation industry in the southern North Sea. This has now declined too but Lowestoft has begun to develop as the centre of the renewable energy industry within Eastern England. Parts of the North Town are very attractive and the old Scores are still there – the steep narrow lanes with steps up from the beach that were used by fishermen and smugglers. The Scores are now the site of an annual race which raises money for charity.

Lowestoft is the most easterly point in Great Britain and is on the edge of the Broads which is a series of connected rivers and lakes and Britain’s largest protected wetland and 3rd largest inland waterway. Some of the earliest evidence of settlement in Britain has been found in the town – flint tools dating back 700,000 years. I will try to make a post about Lowestoft at a future date.

As sunset is now about 4 o’clock in the afternoon we drove there and back in the dark. We parked on the sea front and, returning to the car at 7.30 pm we could hear the waves crashing on the beach – the tide must have been in. I was glad to see on our drive back along the Front, with its rows of hotels, bed-and-breakfast establishments and restaurants, that the Beau Thai Restaurant is still open. I’ve never been in there, but a place with such a terrible name deserves to survive!

Remembrance Day

I looked out of a bedroom window this morning at dawn (about 7.00 am) and saw one of our local Barn Owls flying round the field behind the house. It perched for a while on a fence post but the photograph I took of it there never came out. However, I have included the following picture which I took at the same time, strange as it is, as a record of the owl’s presence.

Why this happened I have no idea! I was looking westward and it was fairly bright and cloudy. No pink anywhere! The sun hadn’t risen yet and would be on the other side of the house anyway.

At 11.00 am this morning I listened on the radio to Big Ben striking the hour and I kept the two minutes silence, praying for all those who have lost their lives in war and for those who have been damaged and injured by war and also for their loved ones. I am finding this more and more affecting as the years go by.

An Afternoon Walk

We have had so much rain recently that the garden and fields are sodden. R and I were in need of a little exercise and fresh air on Sunday afternoon so we decided to do our circuit walk round the lanes, which were less muddy and wet than the footpaths.

View from the lane across the field to All Saints church, just visible sticking out of the group of trees in the distance.

Our lane is fairly muddy as you can see!

There is a natural pond full of fish just to the right of these bollards. It is so full that it is close to overflowing onto the road.

Farmers round here cannot bear to get rid of old implements, tools and scrap metal. I think it gives them a sense of pride to survey this old stuff. ‘It may come in handy some day! It’s worth a lot of money, scrap metal is!’

St Nicholas church was demolished many hundreds of years ago. This is the site where it once stood – the cross is in a garden.

This is our nearest post-box. The lime-green lichen is happy to grow on it.

Just beyond the low pink barn in the distance is the largest tower of straw bales I have seen so far this year. Not a good picture I’m afraid – the light was already fading.

The goat on the left is keeping itself dry by lounging on a trampoline!

Water flowing fast in this ditch.

This is the other side of the bridge.

There is still a lot of green about. Many of the leaves have dropped from the trees while still green.

This is a field of oil-seed rape which is growing very well in our mild, wet autumn. Only a few weeks ago it seems, I was posting photographs of rolls of straw on these fields after the wheat harvest.

These are beautiful spindle berries. Only nature could make orange seeds emerge from shocking pink seed cases!

This is a spindle bush in the hedge. It was glowing in the light of the setting sun.

These are gorgeous dark-red haws from a hawthorn bush in the hedge.

Some leaves are beginning to show some colour.

These leaves caught my eye. I think this is a Sugar Maple – not a native tree.

Another view across the fields.

These are Guelder Rose leaves (Viburnum opulus)….

042Guelder rose with berry drupes (640x480)

…and this is another Guelder Rose with mainly green leaves and also bunches of berries or ‘drupes’.

A dead oak tree. I am pleased that landowners are not in as much of a hurry as they used to be to remove dead wood from fields and hedgerows. A dead tree supports more life than a living one.