Felixstowe is ferry to ferry. At the southern end of the beach is a pile of coloured containers, awaiting loading on to a vast freight vessel for distribution around the world. I was chilled to see that many bore the logo of Evergreen, the company whose enormous Evergiven ship blocked the Suez canal in March, with reports that the containers contained the most despicable and tragic of cargoes. At the time of the Herald of Free Enterprise tragedy, one could cross to Zeebrugge in Belgium. Now there are no passenger ferries from Felixstowe; one must cross the water to Harwich to reach the Low Countries. This Essex port is easily viewed from the industrial end of Felixstowe, and Walton on the Naze beyond. In reverse, the view is coloured blocks, like Lego, and the cranes which seem nearer than they really are.
The big freight vessels obviously have a draw: I’ve heard of people spending a bank holiday to drive over and watch them. Indeed, a whole carpark is provided for this purpose, replete with a viewing room containing cafe and toilets, but it is far from the main resort.
Around the barren point, shaped like a pinniped’s paddle, are the remnants of military activity. The Landguard fort, a 19th century structure dating from the 17th century, is open to visit; there is a small town museum adjacent. Across the scrubland, disbanded wartime buildings are scattered. With a modern Custom House, this part of Felixstowe feels both bustling and abandoned, commercial and combatant.
Around 1800, when Napoleon seemed likely to invade England, a string of sturdy flowerpot shaped towers called Martello, after one in Corsica that Britain couldn’t penetrate, appeared around the south and east coasts. Kent and Sussex got them first; then they began trickling up the rounded Pig’s Bum as I call East Anglia (I live there, so I can say this), to Essex and then Suffolk. I’ve never noticed so many as at Felixstowe, although they are also found at Aldeburgh. Some are right on the beach, some inland on high spots, but none here are open to the public, although at least one is a private home.
Felixstowe is as laden with personal memories as it is cargo; and hereon, my tour is about family history as much as what the (now elusive) tourist leaflets would tell you.
Rounding the flipper, you can see the whole of Suffolk’s most southerly resort and town all in one now – right the way to Bawdsey. When the seaside starts, it’s perhaps not the most genteel part of Felixstowe. I spent much of my teens and childhood here, and so did my family. We enjoyed reminiscing about two generations of Sunday School and family outings; at least one of us has continued to visit regularly.
For me, it was finding my way again after more than a decade, and before that, two.
It is poignant that many of my memories included my mother, with whom I visited last – and it was to be our last day out this lifetime.
I recall being spotted on the pier, fishing with my cousin. My movements gave me away, even at a distance, on the end of this quite simple and rickety structure. The pier has been modernised, so that only gulls may line where juvenile crabbers once congregated. My perambulations of 40 years ago are no longer possible: a boardwalk circumnavigates the pier building, cutting into the cafe’s terrace. Inside is all rowdy slot machines. No crazy golf or camel derby as we hoped to find.
The thin gardens between coastal road and promenade still contain various old style entertainment; a small train; a carousel, but not the Laughing Policeman and Ladybird ride that terrified me in my youth.
The thing which drew me most to Felixstowe in my teens was the new leisure centre. Strangely, my first architectural interest was in 1980s leisure buildings. I drew it for my GCSE art, all in red: I now call it A Study In Scarlet after the first Sherlock Holmes novel, which I did not know at the time. I loved the water chute inside – these, along with wave machines, were fashionable in the 1980s, and they ensured that one could go swimming, even with the worst of infamous British weather. It is perhaps worrying and telling that several such centres appeared on seafronts at the time. I stress that they are indoor pools.
I recall my birthday there when it was new, and being told off ungraciously by a lifeguard when I lost my goggles. It’s still there, although general leisure rather than aquamarine pleasures were most obvious. I couldn’t smell the dire chlorine that I accepted as a child and teen as part of my water experiences. Now, I look to the natural salty variety, although the sea is rough here at times, and the shingly beach slopes dramatically. Perhaps that’s why I’m better acquainted with Lowestoft, known for its sand and safe waters.
I note that Suffolk is bookended by resort ports, on the cusp of other counties and at estuaries, but Lowestoft seems to be more about fishing – we’ll get to that at Felixstowe – but Felixstowe is about transport. Yarmouth used to have a passenger ferry, and it is a working port, but I don’t think that Lowestoft has been either – not in my lifetime.
Passenger ships are especially in my mind as I’m about to publish my 2nd novel, The Jury In My Mind, on the Titanic for its 110th anniversary on April 10th 2022.
The building I most recall at Felixstowe, after the leisure centre (although geographically it comes first), is Charles Manning’s (pictured at the top of the post). It’s a 1930s amusement centre. If it wasn’t there, or wasn’t open, I would have been gutted. It’s changed colour a few times over the decades – last time, it sported candyfloss pink, but its hefty fortressy towers have amused visitors of East Suffolk for nearly a century. I was delighted that the Crazy House, with its wonky windows and moving floors, remains. Three generations could recall this structure in different guises. Today, the outdoor racing bike ride area is covered by small containers, which have become pop up shops. It felt a bit Shoreditch, but I was told by London dwellers that the speed of service was definitely Suffolk. The triple decker fountain outside still bubbles, drawing us to East Suffolk’s distinct pale ice cream which Mum so loved – but wasn’t available on our key summer day visit.
Where the amusement arcades peter out, a third Felixstowe emerges – the smarter resort of Victorian and Edwardians. The step slopes are covered with gardens, in which we loved to play as kids. Rambling up the paths, hiding, was a wonderful pastime. The houses are chalet-like – not the holiday village sort, but more Swiss, with verandas, balconies and shutters. Here also dwelleth the Town Hall.
The steep roads to the town centre are Convalescence Hill and Bent Hill. The reason for the latter’s moniker is obvious, but Convalescence Hill is long before the home which gives its name. One is expected to prepare for repose and respite some way before a large edifice, Bartlett’s, hoves into view on the cliff top.
The town centre includes the now defunct railway station building, but the branch line from Ipswich continues. There is an old style cinema, the Palace, sharing with bingo, and a theatre on the sea front – the Spa Pavilion. This also had personal significance to our group.
We had many beach hut memories, and were surprised at how expensive they are. It is literally a hut, a garden shed, and I can’t imagine there’s a toilet inside; just a place to rest and change, and take shelter. We liked looking at the names and recalled that the local Baptist church had one to hire for its congregation, named after it? We couldn’t find it. A good spot to baptise from!
As the skyline got grander, with Harvest House, the neo Jacobean former hotel, the promenade petered out. We noted that the Tourist Information is now a beach hut. It was closed. But we knew that continuing past the golf course took us to another Felixstowe, surrounded by countryside.
Here is the old fishing area – Old Felixstowe, where the medieval parish church is, and then Felixstowe Ferry. In maximum contrast to the heft of the port, these a simple wooden dinghies – were they even manually rowed? – across to Bawdsey. Bawdsey is synonymous with the development of the bouncing H bomb at its flamboyantly imposing manor, connected to Juliet Hulme of Heavenly Creatures fame’s father, Henry. Quite a lot of suspicious things happened on the wild coasts during the war – there’s more at Orford, next along the coast. You can tour its derelict monoliths – I think they are symbolic and sinister. But this part of Felixstowe is lovable – Mum certainly did. Little fishy places to eat; and there’s a cafe on the Bawdsey side. You can’t cross by car, and I like having to leave behind and go simple and old style – a bit like the rich man and the eye of the needle in the gospel.
Talking of which, the man who brought it – gospel, that is – to these parts isn’t mentioned in my 40 years worth of tourist information. They’ll tell you that Felixstowe is of Roman origins, but not that it is named after a Saxon saint missionary. The church on the skyline, although large close up, is not imposing in the town like at Southwold and Cromer, or many of the Norfolk churches whose towers doubled as lighthouses before the latter was invented. Does Felixstowe have a lighthouse? I haven’t seen it. But the light bearer – if that he was, I’m suspicious of who sent Felix and what sort of Christianity he touted – is cut out in favour of cargo and sand, fort and ferry.
Finally, I loop back to the original car park and the civil war fort, and the landowner – a colonel who defied the military by trying to charge them for imposing on his land and then switching off the water to the fort when he didn’t get his way. He is seen as a kind of wonder, to whom we owe both port and resort today, but I resented the roads clearly reflecting the usual palm tree dominant families – their signature Dutch gables bleeding over from nearby Ipswich – and this ‘entrepreneur’ who developed a natural area for his own gain. Happily, there’s still natural left, such as further up the coast, and there’s a sense of tradition, in a good way, at Felixstowe, and my own memories.
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