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IN THE SADDLE THROUGH SUFFOLK
The Times - Saturday 25 September 2004
Pedal-powered
Nicholas Roe found a quiet charm around every corner on his
freewheeling cycling break.
The
four young men in the pub were already drinking at quite a
pace when their leader nipped to the bar and returned with
four large Drambuies which he plonked before his mates with
a flourish.
"There!"
he exclaimed. "That's to celebrate the fact that we've
caught 15 fish today! Never done that before, ever!".
And
there you go. Suffolk is the kind of place where amazing things
happen in a quiet way. It's the area's subtly attractive signature
tune, and the fish boys were simply singing along.
I
came across them in the King's Head at Orford at the end of
a day's cycle ride from inland Framlingham, mostly following
the lower section of the Suffolk Coastal Cycle Route, which
bends off and on the shoreline as the landscape turns marshy
or rivers intervene, tracing a line through the county's most
secluded spots in the process. It had been a very good journey.
At
Framlingham itself, I had climbed stunning castle ramparts
to stand where Bloody Mary once viewed massed supporters during
her tussle with Lady Jane Grey, just before heads rolled and
history turned a page. Yet it wasn't a sense of great events
that overwhelmed me but a sense of the intense beauty of the
Suffolk countryside, stretching away from the castle heights
in a green baize of fields and woods and haunted hedgerows,
and all very promising.
So
I pedalled off seawards, liberated by sunshine and a holiday
deal that sent my luggage ahead by car, so I had nothing to
haul except me. Brown hares hunkered down in ploughed fields,
pheasants clacked in ditches. The countryside was so secluded
that I soon developed the habit of just slamming on my brakes
mid road, mid-corner, whenever anything interesting caught
my eye. No need to worry.
Suffolk's
lanes hum with silence.
And
what followed was genuinely surprising. A few miles east of
Framlingham, Pound Farm slid into view. Once just another
East Anglian agro-business, in 1989 it became the first major
planting project undertaken by the Woodland Trust. It took
a farm, and scrubbed away years of ploughing and spraying
and tractoring; so now, when you push your bike through the
gate, you encounter a spread of 64,000 native trees on the
barley fields - plus empty walkways, silent ponds, and no one
in the car park.
It
was all so attractive, so unexpected, that I began to crave
more emptiness, so sped on past better-known lures such as
Snape Maltings, home to the annual Aldeburgh Festival, because
tea-shop crowds did not appeal. Instead, I cranked my way
a mile or two east of the Maltings to the seclusion of Iken
Church, lying on an isolated promontory that juts into the
River Alde - where daffodils sprouted from graves, no one moved,
and birds nested in the thatched roof of a building that inhabits
the site of St. Botolph's monastery, built by the devout, destroyed
by Vikings. And there was just me there.
Next
to Orford, where I checked in at the deliciously calm Crown
and Castle hotel, feeling childishly delighted to find my
bag waiting when I arrived; feeling even cheerier next morning
to stand at my bathroom mirror and look out through the window
directly on to the striking monolith of Orford Castle, barely
100 yards away.
What
followed was a loop down into history by more tranquil lanes.
I was off and on the coastal cycle route, following maps clipped
to my handlebars by Suffolk Cycle Breaks, which picks out
all kinds of alternative quiet roads in various day-Glo colours.
Feeling restive? Pick orange, and zip up this side-route for
a bit. Feeling lazy? Go yellow, go direct.
I
headed yellowy-orange for Shingle Street on the coast to the
southeast, a place haunted by stories of a secretly thwarted
German invasion attempt during the Second World War - never
proved, though the legend lingers.
Coming
at it from out of a sun-thinning mist, I became aware of a
vast swath of wildlife-rich shingle seething for miles and
fringed in part by 20 secluded houses, remnants of an old
village that once supported a pub, but no longer.
A
similar taste of half-forgotten landscapes was waiting farther
south at Bawdsey Quay, where you can get a little ferry over
to Felixstowe and where you find Bawdsey Manor, home of radar.
They also used to export fossilised dung from here.
Seriously.
No demand nowadays.
Finally,
I pedalled upriver, via more of those haunted lanes, to the
crumpled remains of Ramsholt village. There used to be more
than 200 locals in this riverside valley, now barely 30 inhabit
the parish. At the Ramsholt Arms I bought steak and ale pie,
and a pint of Adnams, and stared out over mudflats and water
and stunted remains of broken wood jutting from bankside walkways,
indicating who-knows-what industrial heritage, long forgotten
and never commented on much locally anyway. It's just not
that kind of area.
Getting
there:
Nicholas Roe travelled with Suffolk Cycle Breaks (01449
721555, www.cyclebreaks.com). His journey included part of
the Castles and Rivers Tour, which costs £251pp including three nights' B&B, luggage transfer, route
planning, maps, bike hire and mechanical assistance.
