This week’s Diary comes from Suffolk where my wife and I spent a few days researching the wild life and history of that area with a novel in mind. Our base was Aldeburgh, a seaside town with a fairly modern history because the original town on this site, Slaughden, was swept away by extremely heavy seas. That name lives on in a local sailing club and a street name.

In medieval times, Slaughden was known as a ship-building centre and fishing port which continued for a while when Aldeburgh replaced the wrecked town. In fact, Sir Francis Drake’s ships the Greyhound and Pelican (later the famed Golden Hind) were built at Aldeburgh.

Aldeburgh continues the fishing tradition but this entire coastline remains at risk from the sea. Much of the protection at Aldeburgh is achieved by high banks of pebbles and some large rocks or cement blocks, but little else. Beaches in that area comprise deep pebbles and so few people can be seen sitting or walking along them as they do in our North-Eastern resorts. Instead, they promenade along footpaths between the flat shoreside roads and the mass of coastal pebbles.

Our excellent hotel was only the width of a narrow road from the pebbles of the beach and our room overlooked the beach and sea. The hotel even supplied a pair of binoculars so we could enjoy long distance views of ships at sea or birds that congregated on or above the waves.

Our first impression was that this was not a seaside resort of the familiar kind in the north-east. Lacking a sandy sheltered beach, it is a working town; the view from our room embraced nine black wooden huts that sold locally-caught fish and shell-fish, some being smoked. Among the huts was one whose occupants arranged trips to sea on a fishing boat. The ancient timber-framed moot hall also stands near the beach and is still in use, although the first floor is a small museum. There was no sign of amusement arcades, candy-floss, funny hats or funfairs. In fact, it was all very peaceful with plants including sea-kale growing on the beaches.

One curious addition to the beach is the giant but controversial sculpture of a scallop shell dedicated to the composer, Sir Benjamin Britten who walked there every afternoon. It is called The Scallop and was conceived by local artist, Maggi Hambling and built by Aldeburgh craftsmen, Sam and Dennis Pegg.

Aldeburgh is today renowned for its music festival held every June. It was founded in 1948 by Sir Benjamin Britten who then lived in Aldeburgh. The festival’s location is some four or five miles away at The Maltings in Snape.

This is the site of an old malt store and brewery, now a focus for musical events due to its links with Sir Benjamin Britten and his opera Peter Grimes. The large site is also used for a variety of other events and when we arrived it was hosting the massive Aldeburgh Food Festival. We made sure we enjoyed the local produce!

A visit to Southwold reminded us of another town that had disappeared. It now boasts a massive pier which displays a water clock whose mechanism is operated by the power of water which overflows from a miniature bath above and keeps the time-piece working.

In 1659, however, the small town was completely destroyed by a devastating fire but was re-built around large greens. A reminder of the danger from the sea is a floodgate near the inner end of the pier, and this is closed throughout the winter months to safeguard Southwold from abnormal waves. Just opposite is one of the town’s greens containing several small lakes, and there we were surprised to see five Little Egrets wading just in front of the tearooms – a rare sight.

The area is noted for its scarce and rare bird species, and there is nowhere better for spotting them than the RSPB’s Minsmere, location of a recent Springwatch TV programme. Almost four square miles in area (9.7 sq km) it comprises dozens of lakes with woodlands and heaths. It is widely regarded as the country’s finest nature reserve.

We spent a long time exploring its many attractions and noted some interesting species, especially waders and other water birds. There was excitement that a Great White Egret had been seen the day before our arrival – far larger than the Little Egrets - but a list of birds recorded around the time of our visit were: wryneck, marsh harriers, avocets, bitterns, sanderlings, black tailed godwits, greenshanks, Cetti’s warbler, kingfisher, Sandwich terns and bearded tits. Several rare butterflies had also been noted as well as a harvest mouse, otters and out at sea, some porpoises.

Due to the flat landscape there are long distance views even from the lowest “high” point, and always within our vision was the white ball-shaped Sizewell Power Station whose water-cooling systems warm the surrounding sea. We had a long view of it from Dunwich Heath where we were advised to go if we wanted to see the rare Dartford Warbler.

Apparently, these tiny reddish-brown birds with long tails have recently established themselves on this part of the Suffolk coast, some five miles north of Aldeburgh. Full of hope, we parked on the Heath with its coating of heather and gorse, the car park being close to a huge white-painted house, the former Coastguard Station which is now a restaurant.

These shy little birds are difficult to see due to their dark and well-camouflaged colouring but also because they rarely emerge from dense cover – and the Heath is smothered with gorse!

Our advice was that we could hardly miss these fascinating birds because there they have such a heavy presence at this particular location. And we were lucky. We heard the curious buzzing notes of the warbler from a thick bush near the car park, and then it flew out and a split second later vanished behind a litter bin. But we had seen a Dartford Warbler, a rare event if only for a moment.

Dunwich Heath, a National Trust property, is named after the town of Dunwich which in Roman times was known as Sitomagnus, a flourishing port that traded extensively with France. It was the seat of the first Christian bishop of East Anglia, Felix of Burgundy who was sent by the Pope to convert the heathens of East Anglia.

This became a prosperous area and even until the time of Magna Carta, 1215, had enjoyed a prosperity that belied its small size. But then disaster struck. That busy town vanished beneath the waves; in 1326 it was hit by enormous seas which destroyed most of its buildings, including nine churches. The last relics of All Saints Church fell into the sea last century as the fragile cliffs continued to crumble in the relentless sea, in this case taking an old graveyard with it.

I can only conclude by quoting from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar “There is a tide in the affairs of men…”