Woodbridge

We stopped in Woodbridge on the way to Aldeburgh.   It’s an unexpectedly well-preserved English rural town, not too tarted up, full of independent shops and atmospheric detailing. 

We walked down the so-called Thoroughfare, past a coffee shop with mid-seventeenth-century wood carving:-

Then past T.W. Cotman’s branch of Lloyd’s Bank, which tells you what it is, as if this wasn’t obvious:-

Up Church Street with the premises of Webb Bros., an old- fashioned ironmongers:-

And into the churchyard of St. Mary, where one is confronted by a neoclassical urn commemorating James Pulham, friend of Constable, who died MAY THE SECOND 1830:-

Opposite, the tomb of the Clarkes:-

The church itself is very impressive – large and civic and with decorative flint detailing:-

Inside, there is a fine early seventeenth-century tomb commemorating Jeffrey Pitman, kneeling above his wives and sons.   These are the sons:-

I liked the font:-

And a corrugated iron, water butt:-

Up on Market Hill, I admired an antique shop of a sort one now seldom sees:-

And the decorative lettering in the window of a private house:-

All of it nicely intact, protected by acres of car parking which keeps the cars away.

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6 thoughts on “Woodbridge”

  1. Dick Humphreys says:

    You are entirely right – a wonderful and overlooked gem – and the walk along the estuary is superb.

    Reply
  2. ryecottages says:

    Very nice photos. I loved Woodbridge when I visited for the first time last year but didn’t go inside the church, and must do next time. Just by the start of the water there’s a restored and working Tide Mill, one of a kind I think. Worth a look if you didn’t see it this time.
    Victoria

    Reply
  4. Tom Ponsonby says:

    It’s well worth visiting Ufford next time you are up near Woodbridge. With modern road arrangements, it’s most unlikely that you would ever find it by chance, although so close. The greatest glory of Ufford church is its font cover: “It rises, six metres high, magnificent and stately, into the clerestory, enormous in its scale and presence. In all England, only the font cover at Southwold is taller. The cover is telescopic, and crocketting and arcading dances around it like waterfalls and forests. There are tiny niches, filled today with 19th century statues. At the top is a gilt pelican, plucking its breast”. Quote lifted from http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk

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