Suffolk: Butley Ferry to Bawdsey Ferry 25/6/2009**

 

St Andrew   Hoary mullein at Shingle Street   North Sea breakers, Bawdsey

At Capel St. Andrew, a tiny hamlet with an imposing statue of St. Andrew beside the road, we took the small lane down to Dock Farm and parked at the end, the start of the shortest track back to Butley River.  We immediately passed a number of large pools, an RSPB reserve with an impressive variety of birds – a family of teal, a juvenile cormorant, black-tailed godwit, coot, turnstone, black-headed and Mediterranean gulls, lapwings, grey heron, and shelduck.  We walked the embankment to the end of the river and then turned along the River Ore, with the southern end of Orford Ness opposite.  We tripped over a young toad in our path.  Soon the saltmarsh of Oxley Marshes developed below with the usual plants, and, beyond that, shingle banks developing, with an exceptional flora including yellow vetch (whose hairy pods were generally more noticeable than the pale greenish-yellow flowers), bur medick, sea pea, sea kale, yellow horned poppy, sticky groundsel, and even one bush of shrubby seablite.  Drier saltmarsh had hare’s-foot, rough and knotted clovers and spotted medick.  We passed Hollesley Bay Borstal, hardly visible behind trees, when the shingle began to develop in earnest, especially fronting the row of houses called Shingle Street, where we found a wooden bench to sit and have our lunch.  We had a full view of the shingle plants, with much white, biting and English stonecrops.  There was also hoary mullein and many garden escapes.  A stock dove passed over.  The shingle continued past several Martello Towers, sometimes enclosing saline lagoons, but narrowed as we approached Bawdsey, where coastal erosion prevented further progress along the front and we had to turn up a lane into the village.  Shortly along the road south of the village, passing a colourful patch of sown wildflowers at Bawdsey Hall, another footpath took us back to the front, but there was no access to the embankment (unlike the rest of Suffolk, where the embankments were walkable and paths well-maintained), so we had to walk along the shingle beach, making slower progress.  Later on, the tops of the sand cliffs were fenced off by an industrial installation and then by the large estate of Bawdsey Manor, a conference centre and international school.  The cliffs commonly slumped down, giving an occasional clay edge to the shingle that made easier walking and supported a variable flora including many arable annuals like bugloss and annual mercury, a little common cudweed and common centaury, yellow horned-poppy growing right up the cliffs, and later on Hottentot fig and silver ragwort.  The shore became increasingly eroded, crossed by rotting groynes, and access was only possible along a shingle path supported by a metal wall, with tamarisk and sea buckthorn attempting to close off access altogether.  After days of coast walking with no view of the sea, we were pleased to sea the North Sea splashing on the shore with a lively spray.  Eventually we rounded the corner of the River Deben and a little more shingle led us to the Bawdsey Ferry, which was operating to Felixstowe, but this was the end of our day.  We called had a drink and ice-cream at the Boathouse Café waiting for a taxi.  Students from the international school were bathing and playing volleyball on the beach, where there was a single clump of sea rocket.

Sea pea   Yellow vetch   Wildflower verge, Bawdsey Hall   Bawdsey ferry point