East Anglian Coast

From Leigh to Lynn - the Thames to the Wash - the coastlines of East Anglia are the most diverse in Great Britain. Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex are communities shaped by their close relationship with the sea and seafaring, from Viking raiders to modern container ships, and hard-working trawlers to elegant racing yachts.In this book, long-time resident David Fairhall explores a landscape that has inspired some of the greatest English painters. He follows gentle rivers that reach far inland from a coastline of marsh, sand and shingle, through fenland and farmland, to rural villages where the past is always present.Rediscovering the East Anglian coastline everyone knows, and uncovering the East Anglian shores only the locals see, this book is written for newcomers and visitors interested in the waterside. It is a treasure trove of local history, endearing wildlife, fascinating architecture and friendly pubs.For anyone whose first impulse on arriving in an unfamiliar town on the coast is to head for the water, this book brings the landscape to life.

Over the course of a year, Jules Pretty walked along the shoreline of East Anglia in southeastern England, eventually exploring four hundred miles on foot (and another hundred miles by boat). It is a coast and a culture that is about to be lost—not yet, perhaps, but soon—to rising tides and industrial sprawl. This Luminous Coast takes the reader with him on his journey over land and water; over sea walls of dried grass, beside stretched fields of golden crops, alongside white sails gliding across the intricate lacework of invisible creeks and estuaries, under vast skies that are home to curlews and redshanks and the outpourings of skylarks. East Anglia’s coastline is as much a human landscape as it is a natural one, and Pretty is equally perceptive about the region’s cultural heritage and its "industrial wild": fishing villages and the modern seaside resorts, family farms and oil refineries, pleasure piers and concrete seawalls, cozy pubs and military installations. Through words and photographs, Pretty interweaves stories of the land and sea with people past and present. He is a passionate and sensitive guide to a region in transition, under stress, and perhaps even doomed, as finely attuned to its history as he is to its unique sensory world.

From Leigh to Lynn - the Thames to the Wash - the coastlines of East Anglia are the most diverse in Great Britain. Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex are communities shaped by their close relationship with the sea and seafaring, from Viking raiders to modern container ships, and hard-working trawlers to elegant racing yachts.In this book, long-time resident David Fairhall explores a landscape that has inspired some of the greatest English painters. He follows gentle rivers that reach far inland from a coastline of marsh, sand and shingle, through fenland and farmland, to rural villages where the past is always present.Rediscovering the East Anglian coastline everyone knows, and uncovering the East Anglian shores only the locals see, this book is written for newcomers and visitors interested in the waterside. It is a treasure trove of local history, endearing wildlife, fascinating architecture and friendly pubs.For anyone whose first impulse on arriving in an unfamiliar town on the coast is to head for the water, this book brings the landscape to life.

Lost to the Sea: Norfolk & Suffolk relates the stories of how the human communities along the coast of these counties maintained their struggle with the sea. From very early Neolithic times, when global changes created the Continental Shelf and raised the cliffs along Britain's eastern shorelines, through Roman and medieval times, the first villages and towns were gradually established, only to be faced with the problem of the sea's incursions onto agricultural land. In the 1950s, Rowland Parker's classic study of Dunwich, a key town of Suffolk engulfed, set the scene for a long-standing interest in how the sea's challenge has been met. There have been successes and failures, and Stephen Wade tells the story of the seaside holiday towns and fishing communities that have had to struggle for survival.In this book, the reader will find stories of the people involved in this titanic effort through the centuries. The narrative moves down the coast from Hunstanton to Southwold, tracing the losses and the gains, not only in measurements of land, but in the tough human experience of that environmental history.

The conversion to Christianity of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia left huge marks on the area, both metaphorical and literal. Drawing on both the surviving documentary sources, and on the eastern region's rich archaeological record, this book presents the first multi-disciplinary synthesis of the process. It begins with an analysis of the historical framework, followed by an examination of the archaeological evidence for the establishment of missionary stations within the region's ruinous Roman forts and earthwork enclosures. It argues that the effectiveness of the Christian mission is clearly visible in the region's burial record, which exhibits a number of significant changes, including the cessation of cremation. The conversion can also be seen in the dramatic upheavals which occurred in the East Anglian landscape, including changes in the relationship between settlements and cemeteries, and the foundation of a number of different types of Christian cemetery. Ultimately, it shows that far from being the preserve of kings, the East Anglian conversion was widespread at a grassroots level, changing the nature of the Anglo-Saxon landscape forever. Dr Richard Hoggett is currently Coastal Heritage Officer with Norfolk County Council.

From Leigh to Lynn – the Thames to the Wash – the coastlines of East Anglia are the most diverse in Great Britain. Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex are communities shaped by their close relationship with the sea and seafaring, from Viking raiders to modern container ships, and hard-working trawlers to elegant racing yachts. In this book, long-time resident David Fairhall explores a landscape that has inspired some of the greatest English painters. He follows gentle rivers that reach far inland from a coastline of marsh, sand and shingle, through fenland and farmland, to rural villages where the past is always present. Rediscovering the East Anglian coastline everyone knows, and uncovering the East Anglian shores only the locals see, this book is written for newcomers and visitors interested in the waterside. It is a treasure trove of local history, endearing wildlife, fascinating architecture and friendly pubs. For anyone whose first impulse on arriving in an unfamiliar town on the coast is to head for the water, this book brings the landscape to life.