Sunday 26 September 2021

Postcards From Thorpeness

Thorpeness is rather different from any other seaside place on these islands. It's to be found down in deepest Suffolk sandwiched between the ancient town of Aldeborough, with its connections to the composer Benjamin Britten, which lies a mile and a half (2.4 Km) to the south; and Sizewell nuclear power station which is about two miles north. It owes its existence not to any advantage bestowed on it by geography, nor to any special favour received through history......No, it's sole raison d'ĂȘtre is that an eccentric aristocrat saw a flooded field here one winter's morning.



Rather than having it drained, as most gentlemen of his era might have done, Glencairn Stuart Ogilvie decided to make it into a boating lake and build a holiday village around it. But then there's something slightly odd about the whole place.



You can never really quite work out whether Ogilvie was the kind of man who had very precise but individual ideas about what he wanted to achieve; or whether he was a hapless and impractical soul who aimed at something he'd seen done elsewhere but fell rather wide of the mark. Lets have a look around at some of his ideas.



 He chose to create a "typical English village" between the boating lake and the beach.



The style chosen for many of the houses is best described as "Mock Tudor" and was quite fashionable just then. He may well have been influenced by the "New Town" movement which was gathering pace at the time, though Thorpeness was always going to be a much more modest settlement. If you have heard of the place at all it's probably because of this...



This is "The House In The Clouds" and has become one of the more famous landmarks of the Suffolk coast. It was originally a water-tower, but Ogilvie thought it spoiled the look of the whole place so he disguised it as a typical small dwelling - albeit five storeys up in the air! When it ceased to be used as a water-tower it seemed the obvious thing to convert it to a games-room for the villagers. Nowadays you can hire the place as a holiday home. There are times when Thorpeness seems to be the lovechild of Enid Blyton and Salvador Dali!



Once you start building disguised water-towers why stop at just one? Here's another that might be a castle keep or a church tower.



But if you go through the arch beneath the tower you find yourself in a quiet back street.



This track, which looks completely rural, runs right through the middle of the village.



Here's the church which has recently been converted to residential use after years of standing unused and apparently unloved.



And here's the golf club with an 18-hole course designed by James Braid, who also designed such famous courses as Gleneagles and Carnoustie. For many years Thorpeness was completely owned by the Ogilvie family and they only sold property to their friends or housed workers from their estate.



A grand gatehouse announces your arrival at....well, nowhere in particular!



Like many other seaside places in the UK there are beach houses of varying styles stretching along the coast, though presumably they were not part of the original plan.



The bright sun beat down upon the incoming waves as we wandered back along the beach, which along this stretch of coast is little more than a bank of shingle with not a grain of sand in sight.



You often see cairns on our beaches; it's just what people do when confronted with an inexhaustible supply of stones. But here somebody has gone to the bother of importing the building material. I don't know who, I don't know how and I don't know why. But around here the inexplicable seems commonplace. 



We'll head back to the village and The Boathouse where you can buy a variety of food and drink and sit by the waterside, watching the world go by. The Meare has a large number of islands and hidden backwaters, all of which are named. Not only that but the names were dreamed up by Sir James Matthew Barrie, no less. Yes, that's J M Barrie of Peter Pan fame, a friend of the Ogilvie family.



This, for example, is The North-West Passage - ideal for young pirates and explorers! 



Tempting as it was to re-enact our teenage years by hiring a rowing boat or a punt, we decided to take life easy before moving on to our next destination.

 

Take care.


26 comments:

  1. John I am ashamed to report that the farmer and I stayed several times at The White Lion hotel in Aldebrough and walked all around the area but I have never heard of this lovely village or visited it. Fascinating stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi men think your views and a very discripitive view on each picture . Makes for an insight that possiby would not be appreciated .well done boys r john ( the old tele man).

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a lovely glimpse of an eccentric idea, which has mellowed with the years. Typical British foolishness.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Eccentricity taken to extremes?
    Fascinating though.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Aldebrough is very familiar to many but not Thorpness. I do enjoy the way that you manage to capture the extraordinary and bring it to our attention. Next time I find myself in Aldbrough, the next stop will be Thorpness.

    ReplyDelete
  6. You have done a great job describing this quirky location. I expect a few people reading your blog will be off to make a visit.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi John - what a fun post ... it's an area I've never visited ... but this was a delight to find out about - amazing place ... love the postcards thank you! Cheers Hilary

    ReplyDelete
  8. He must have had lots of money to spend. But why didn't he name it for himself? Thorpness?
    It looks like a popular spot still.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks for enlightening me with such beautiful scenes, and architecture not to be equaled anywhere. And of course the delight of the village and lake having been dreamed up by imaginative people. Who dares say the English are dull!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Fascinating as usual. A wonderful place for a wander, to be sure. I like what they did with water towers. We’ve a few here which could use some fancy work.

    ReplyDelete
  11. What a quirky interesting place to walk around. I love that stone beach. I would love to go rock-hounding there. And that dirt road through the village is quite a surprise. Thank you for such an interesting walk!

    ReplyDelete
  12. You always visit the best places! Thanks for another fascinating narrative and photos.

    ReplyDelete
  13. These photos are wonderful. I really enjoyed this little trip. Such a beautiful place. That house in the cloud is really quite comical. Enjoy your day, hugs, Edna B.

    ReplyDelete
  14. What an eccentric place to explore. The water tower idea was a grand one, I like it. Thanks for another of your informative and wonderful walks.

    ReplyDelete
  15. A wonderful place to explore. Thanks for showing it!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Amazing, always, your blog is the absolute highlight of my days. I return often to stare and wonder.The beauty of England - the strange out of the way places where the bus does not accommodate- next time I might hire a car , drive on the wrong side, get into trouble , bother other drivers, you know...be American. Thank you so much for your amazing journeys and photos.

    ReplyDelete
  17. What a lovely place! I like the The House In The Clouds and googled it to check out photos of the inside. Cool!

    ReplyDelete
  18. I am one who thoroughly enjoys eccentricity! This little town is charming and all the more interesting because of its origins. It looks like the gull is quite satisfied with being a resident … or is he staring off into the distance, dreaming of a town with perpendicular streets with proper names, where a church is a church and a water tower is only ever a water tower???

    ReplyDelete
  19. Another fascinating trip - thank you, John.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Great photos of such an unusual place. I expect it gets really busy at times:)

    ReplyDelete
  21. Son bellas postales de un lugar de ensueño. La foto que me ha depertado un mayor interĂ©s es la nĂșmero 5.

    Que tengas una feliz semana.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I recall visiting Thorpeness on a family holiday in the 1960's, although we only visited the lake. It must have been a dry summer as I remember a low water level and most of the lake beyond the main open area roped off as too shallow for people to safely venture there.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Fascinating trip. I like the story. Thank you for the postcard.

    ReplyDelete
  24. What a place to visit...I really have enjoyed it. So glad you explained everything.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I'll try to answer any questions via a comment or e-mail within the next day or two (no hard questions, please!).