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Published: November 4th 2013
Tsamaya Comfortably Located
at the Suffolk Yacht Harbour on the Orwell River in the UK.When we arrived at the Suffolk Yacht Harbour (British spelling!) on the Orwell River we didn’t know how long we would be there, the weather was going to dictate that. Fortunately for us we met a couple that live on their boat here who helped us with getting oriented to what is here. Jenny works at the shop and was very helpful in organizing a visit from the Immigration/Customs officers to get us legally checked into the country. Two officers arrived, asked us a few questions, stamped our passports and we are now officially in the UK and can stay for 6 months.
We checked the weather and found out that we would be here for a few days. This marina is not in walking distance to a town or any shops, but we found out that we could walk up the hill (about 1 mile) and catch a bus into Ipswich. This gave us a chance to stretch our legs and see a little bit of the country side as well. Upon arriving in Ipswich we found out from the visitor center that we could take a free tour of the Christchurch Mansion so decided to take a walk
there. In 1545 a successful London merchant purchased the land and his son began to build the mansion. The estate passed down to the daughter and in 1649 her husband made numerous alternations to the front of the home and its gardens. It changed hands again and the estate grounds increased from 71 acres to 95 in 1732. The Fonnereau family (French royals who escaped the French Revolution) now owned it and allowed the public to enjoy their private grounds and community events were held in the park. In 1894 some of the land was sold for development but the mansion was given to the town as a gift. It has been open to the public ever since. It has an extensive collection of furnishings including many paintings by well-known artists of the area. Nearby in the mid-1700’s porcelain was made in Lowestroft and they attempted to compete with porcelain made in the East. A large collection of this pottery is on exhibit here.
They are particularly proud of their collection of two of Britain’s greatest landscape painters, Thomas Gainsborough and John Constable. Most of the paintings on display are landscapes of the local area. It was interesting to
Double Decker Buses
are common to see now that we are in the UK. see the comparison of the two artists that had their own interpretation of the same subjects.
We had a beautiful day to wander through the mansion as well as a small part of the gardens. It was obvious from the colors of the leaves and the number that are now on the ground that Fall has reached the United Kingdom.
We continued to walk through the town of Ipswich noting some of the historic buildings that still remain. The town hall dates from 1866 while St. Mary le Tower Church which originated in medieval times does not have too much of the original structure remaining but still dates from the 1860’s when it was rebuilt. It was interesting to see that this and some of the other buildings in town were covered with flint, just like some that we saw in northern France. This is not surprising when you remember that southern England and northern France share the same geology. Both the French and British coasts were made of chalk cliffs which contain fist sized rocks made of flint. Flint is very hard so it weathers very little over time unlike sandstone or brick.
We had quite
The Lightship
here at the marina is now the "clubhouse". a few hard downpours while waiting here, but luckily a few dry spells that allowed us to get out. We visited a small fresh water lake nearby and found that it had been formed by a dyke that had been built separating it from the Orwell River. There were numerous fishermen using it as well as flocks of swans and ducks dotting the surface. We continued on as the path went along the top of the dyke bordering the river. We found ourselves at Trimley Marshes Nature Reserve where they have a very interesting visitor center manned by volunteers. We had a nice visit with Peter and his son James, then continued on to see if we could get a closer look at the commercial port located near Felixstowe. It is impressive to see how well organized it is with containers lined up to be loaded on to ships that arrive as well as those needing to be trucked to other locations.
We had to re-trace our steps; we had been told there wasn’t any easy way to get to the town due to the size of the port. On our way back we were fortunate to meet up
Formerly the Oak Inn in Ipswich
originally from the 15th C. was restored in the 1880's. with Peter again and he offered to give us a lift into town. This was a bonus, we wanted to see Felixstowe, it had been described to us as a smaller, quaint, seaside holiday village. We spent the rest of the time walking the streets, poking into the various shops and even got a few bargains at one of the charity clothing shops. The cashier actually was originally from NYC and she was so excited to hear a US accent as she said she was missing being back “home”. We have found that there are numerous charities that raise money by selling used clothing and they are well run and have some great bargains. Bob had just recently put a hole in his blue jeans so was able to get a replacement pair and Janice got a couple of nice warm sweaters for the cool weather ahead. For lunch we found a nice small café run by a Mexican woman who has been living her for over 20 years. She did everything in the place and served a very good lunch for a reasonable price. We had been warned that restaurant prices were quite high in the UK so we
Christchurch Mansion
has been open to the public since 1894. were pleased to find there are places that we could fit into our budget.
It started to look like we would be able to leave on Tuesday the 15
th so started to plan out our trip down to the River Medway which is near to the entrance of the Thames. With any trip here you must not only factor in the weather but as important are the tides and currents. Jenny and Chris invited us over to their place to go over their charts so we could pick up some local knowledge from them. What a help they were! There are numerous sand banks along the east coast of England that you need to be mindful of and Jenny was able to give us waypoints to use in order to go inside some of these banks which would cut off about an hour from the trip. This is definitely helpful as daylight is much shorter these days and the tides change to your advantage very early in the morning. If you work it right the tide will help you as the current picks up and you can make the trip quicker than normal. Now with this new information in
hand, Bob re-worked the route for us and we determined that we would need to leave at 4AM. We were in a marina so decided to move out to a mooring in the river so when we left at 4AM all we had to do was drop the line and take off. This worked out well and with almost a full moon we had plenty of light so we could easily navigate the river out to sea. Fortunately the UK does an excellent job on marking their navigational channels with channel markers so it was like following the “dots” out.
The sail started off very well with the wind just as predicted. Unfortunately it changed direction sooner than predicted and we had a tougher time of it than we had hoped. The wind was more on the nose and we were getting quite a lot of “chop” due to wind against tide. This made it uncomfortable but in no way unsafe. With the wind in our faces, it made for a colder trip. We were glad that with our local knowledge now in hand, a shorter trip was just what we wanted!
Before we actually got to the
The Rooms Were Furnished
as they had been in the 18th C. in the Christchurch Mansion. marina we got a chance to see from the river our first English castle! We found out later this is the Upnor Castle. It was located here specifically to defend ships moored in the River outside the Chatham Dockyard. We made it to Chatham Marina by 2PM. You must enter through a lock due to the tides so we called them up and they said they would open for us. The marina is located in one of three basins that had originally been a Navy dockyard where they built and repaired submarines and large ships. There is quite a lot of history here as we soon learned. More on that in the next blog entry.
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AnnaAdventuring
Anna Louise
My hometown!
How strange to see a blog on Ipswich! Can't say I've ever seen many tourists about. It's nice to see photos of home here, although it looks like the weather is typically Autumnal , bleak, grey skies and rain! I hope you enjoyed Christchurch mansion. I was last there with my class from school! If you ever get to see the film 'Private Peaceful' it was filmed at the mansion.