"See another side to this busy coastal resort on a pleasant walk along the Deben Estuary."
Walk directions
Take the tarmac path along an embankment behind the Ferry Café car park. The path passes the boatyard and follows the river wall as you look down on abandoned boats lying moored in muddy flats. Turn right through a squeeze stile to walk beside the Deben Estuary. After 0.5 miles (800m) the path swings left and then right across an inlet at the entrance to King's Fleet.
Turn left to descend the embankment and walk along a broad track. Stay on this track as it winds its way between farmland and King's Fleet. After 1 mile (1.6km) the track bends right and climbs to a farm where it becomes a tarmac lane. Continue until you reach a T-junction.
Turn left across the field to climb to a ridge then drop down through the next field to The Wilderness, a belt of trees beside Falkenham Brook. Turn left through the trees and follow this path alongside the stream, then bend right to go through a gate and meadow. Make for the corner of a hedge opposite and bear right alongside a fence to cross a footbridge and continue on a grassy path between the fields. When you get to the end of a field, turn left and continue to the end of a hedge, then turn right to climb a track to Brick Kiln Cottages.
At the top of the track, turn left along a lane and stay on this lane past Gulpher Hall and its duck pond. As the road bends right, walk past the entrance to The Brook and turn left on a path dissecting two fields. The path ascends then turns right around a field and cuts straight across the field corner, unless it's diverted by crops. Pass through a gate and keep straight on along the lane, then turn left before houses in 150yds (137m) to join another path that runs between fields.
When you reach a pill box, turn right on to Ferry Road. Cross Cliff Road and turn left, walking past the clubhouse and turning half right across the golf course on a signposted path to reach the sea wall. Turn left and walk along the wall, passing two Martello towers and a row of beach huts. Continue to the mouth of the estuary and turn left just before the jetty to return to the Ferry Café.
Felixstowe, whose name means 'happy place', is a large Edwardian seaside resort that continues to provide thousands of families with buckets of summer fun. The English beach holiday may be in terminal decline thanks to cheap flights to the Mediterranean, but Felixstowe still embodies the carefree,... kiss-me-quick atmosphere of an earlier age. Children ride bumper boats, go fishing for crabs and buy sticks of rock from kiosks on the pier. Pensioners stroll along the promenade and drink tea at seafront cafés. At the same time, Felixstowe has grown to become Britain's largest container port. Fishing huts and ferry This walk shows you another side of Felixstowe, well away from the arcades and the sandcastles on the beach. It starts in the small hamlet of Felixstowe Ferry, with its boatyard, fishing huts and ferry across the river. The café here serves some of the freshest fish and chips you will find, but if that is still not fresh enough you can buy fish straight off the fishing boat at the huts down by the quay. The walk leads along the estuary of the River Deben and beside the King's Fleet, a peaceful stream that takes its name from the fleet of ships assembled here by Edward III ready to sail to France. The King's Fleet is no longer navigable but back in the 13th century it was regularly used by trading ships. Martello towers Returning to the sea, you pass two Martello towers, rare survivors of a chain of defensive outposts built between 1805 and 1812 to protect the English coastline against a threatened invasion by Napoleon of France. These round towers were 30ft (9m) tall and had walls up to 13ft (4m) thick in order to withstand incoming cannonballs. Ironically, they were based on a tower at Mortella Point in Corsica, Napoleon's birthplace, which the British Navy had tried unsuccessfully to bombard. The towers were three storeys high and contained living quarters for one officer and 24 men, together with gunpowder stores, provisions and a gun tower on the roof. Line of follies By 1815 Napoleon had been defeated at Waterloo and the Martello towers were redundant. The promised invasion never took place and none of the towers ever fired a shot in anger. Many of them have disappeared without trace into the sea, but a few of the towers remain, such as a line of follies decorating the East Anglian coast. One of the towers at Felixstowe was used for some time by the coastguard, and another at Felixstowe Ferry is now a private house. They stand above the beach as lonely reminders of the time when England faced the real threat of foreign invasion.
Suffolk is Constable country, where the county’s crumbling, time-ravaged coastline spreads itself under wide skies to convey a wonderful sense of remoteness and solitude. Highly evocative and atmospheric, this is where rivers wind lazily to the sea and notorious 18th-century smugglers hid from the excise men.
"See another side to this busy coastal resort on a pleasant walk along the Deben Estuary."
Walk details
3hrs
Difficulty:
Medium
Gradient:
Gentle
Distance:
6.5 miles (10.4kms)
Ascent:
164ft (50m)
Walk directions
Take the tarmac path along an embankment behind the Ferry Café car park. The path passes the boatyard and follows the river wall as you look down on abandoned boats lying moored in muddy flats. Turn right through a squeeze stile to walk beside the Deben Estuary. After 0.5 miles (800m) the path swings left and then right across an inlet at the entrance to King's Fleet.
1 of 5
Turn left to descend the embankment and walk along a broad track. Stay on this track as it winds its way between farmland and King's Fleet. After 1 mile (1.6km) the track bends right and climbs to a farm where it becomes a tarmac lane. Continue until you reach a T-junction.
2 of 5
Turn left across the field to climb to a ridge then drop down through the next field to The Wilderness, a belt of trees beside Falkenham Brook. Turn left through the trees and follow this path alongside the stream, then bend right to go through a gate and meadow. Make for the corner of a hedge opposite and bear right alongside a fence to cross a footbridge and continue on a grassy path between the fields. When you get to the end of a field, turn left and continue to the end of a hedge, then turn right to climb a track to Brick Kiln Cottages.
3 of 5
At the top of the track, turn left along a lane and stay on this lane past Gulpher Hall and its duck pond. As the road bends right, walk past the entrance to The Brook and turn left on a path dissecting two fields. The path ascends then turns right around a field and cuts straight across the field corner, unless it's diverted by crops. Pass through a gate and keep straight on along the lane, then turn left before houses in 150yds (137m) to join another path that runs between fields.
4 of 5
When you reach a pill box, turn right on to Ferry Road. Cross Cliff Road and turn left, walking past the clubhouse and turning half right across the golf course on a signposted path to reach the sea wall. Turn left and walk along the wall, passing two Martello towers and a row of beach huts. Continue to the mouth of the estuary and turn left just before the jetty to return to the Ferry Café.
Felixstowe, whose name means 'happy place', is a large Edwardian seaside resort that continues to provide thousands of families with buckets of summer fun. The English beach holiday may be in terminal decline thanks to cheap flights to the Mediterranean, but Felixstowe still embodies the carefree,... kiss-me-quick atmosphere of an earlier age. Children ride bumper boats, go fishing for crabs and buy sticks of rock from kiosks on the pier. Pensioners stroll along the promenade and drink tea at seafront cafés. At the same time, Felixstowe has grown to become Britain's largest container port. Fishing huts and ferry This walk shows you another side of Felixstowe, well away from the arcades and the sandcastles on the beach. It starts in the small hamlet of Felixstowe Ferry, with its boatyard, fishing huts and ferry across the river. The café here serves some of the freshest fish and chips you will find, but if that is still not fresh enough you can buy fish straight off the fishing boat at the huts down by the quay. The walk leads along the estuary of the River Deben and beside the King's Fleet, a peaceful stream that takes its name from the fleet of ships assembled here by Edward III ready to sail to France. The King's Fleet is no longer navigable but back in the 13th century it was regularly used by trading ships. Martello towers Returning to the sea, you pass two Martello towers, rare survivors of a chain of defensive outposts built between 1805 and 1812 to protect the English coastline against a threatened invasion by Napoleon of France. These round towers were 30ft (9m) tall and had walls up to 13ft (4m) thick in order to withstand incoming cannonballs. Ironically, they were based on a tower at Mortella Point in Corsica, Napoleon's birthplace, which the British Navy had tried unsuccessfully to bombard. The towers were three storeys high and contained living quarters for one officer and 24 men, together with gunpowder stores, provisions and a gun tower on the roof. Line of follies By 1815 Napoleon had been defeated at Waterloo and the Martello towers were redundant. The promised invasion never took place and none of the towers ever fired a shot in anger. Many of them have disappeared without trace into the sea, but a few of the towers remain, such as a line of follies decorating the East Anglian coast. One of the towers at Felixstowe was used for some time by the coastguard, and another at Felixstowe Ferry is now a private house. They stand above the beach as lonely reminders of the time when England faced the real threat of foreign invasion.
Suffolk is Constable country, where the county’s crumbling, time-ravaged coastline spreads itself under wide skies to convey a wonderful sense of remoteness and solitude. Highly evocative and atmospheric, this is where rivers wind lazily to the sea and notorious 18th-century smugglers hid from the excise men.
