Thorpeness

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Next, John steered his car for the north eastern direction. An hour after he had started driving, we saw the brick buildings in Snape and Aldeburgh, which we visited a few years ago. Then, he drove past the village sign of Thorpeness. We could see a number of pretty timber-framed houses in the village. John parked his car near the lake. People were riding boats and swans were swimming in the lake. With attractive Tudor style houses and picturesque lake, Thorpeness appeared to be a lovely resort village near the coast.

John & Mary suggested we would walk along the coast towards Aldeburgh. They pointed at the futuristic modern two-storey house. They building work was carried out at that house. Having seen several IT equipment, we reckoned the property would be used as an office in the near future. There were lines of lovely sea houses and holiday cottages along the coast.

After returning to the village, John & Mary took us to the footpath flanked by the residential houses. All of the Tudor style houses with mullioned windows and cottage gardens looked very pretty, however, windows were nearly as big as today's residential houses and all of the timbers and bricks were orderly shaped. More importantly, they were symmetrical buildings. They were nothing like authentic Tudor houses with unevenly shaped bricks, stones, and timbers and outwardly tilted upper floors in the Cotswolds villages and Lavenham in West Suffolk. Thorpeness is a mock Tudor coastal village designed by Stuart Ogilvie in the 1920s.

While walking on the footpath, a peculiar wooden tower came into my sight. The information board said that the cottage on its roof is disguised water tank, supplied by a pump housed in a windmill alongside, and the seven storey house has been running as a holiday cottage. Looking at the vertical shaped house at the close position, I imagined the patrons overlooking the Thorpeness village surrounded by the clouds on the 6th or 7th floor. No wonder the property was called "The House in the Clouds". The unique holiday cottage is shown in the tourist guide of the Most Amazing Places to visit in Britain. We also looked at the windmill.

Afterwards, we walked back to the lake and got on the car to return to Lark Rise in Stanningfield in Suffolk.

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