FRIDAY
7pm We arrive at Dunwich, a hamlet in East Suffolk that was once a thriving seaport, home to 5,000 people and eight churches. By the 1600s, most of its buildings had fallen into the sea. Locals say the church bells still clang beneath the water.
10pm We’re staying at The Ship – a sweetly rickety hotel attached to a 18th-century pub (£120 a night, shipatdunwich.co.uk). Our pretty room has a wicker bed by a window, which we keep open. We don’t hear sunken bells, just the waves.
SATURDAY
8am Dunwich has no shops, so we drive to Yoxford to get the papers. En route, we pass The Yoxman: a 26ft-tall bronze statue of a naked man, made in 2021 by artist Laurence Edwards. It stands, splendid, in a field; it really perks up the A12.
9am After our (excellent) breakfast at The Ship, we walk on Dunwich’s wide shingle beach. I admire a black-tarred fisherman’s hut with clocks that tell the tide times. My boyfriend buzzes that, in the distance, we can see Sizewell B.
11am Also on the beach is The Suffolk Sauna. It fits up to eight and costs £16 an hour to rent. We sit inside till we are warm – and brave – enough to run out and dunk ourselves in the 6C North Sea, then race back into the heat. Several times.
1pm We drive 30 minutes south to Aldeburgh, with its shingle beach and pastel houses. There we eat £2 sausage rolls from Lawson’s Deli and gawp at Scallop, a sculpture by Suffolk native Maggi Hambling.
5pm We drive back via Snape Maltings: formerly an 1800s barley maltings on the banks of the River Alde, now an arts hub with galleries, shops and a concert hall. It, too, has a famous artwork: a set of three bronze sculptures by Barbara Hepworth.
8pm The pub at The Ship is, basically, perfect: old brick walls, overhead beams, casement windows. We sit by a fire and have a pint of local Adnams ale, then lots of good food including trout gravadlax (£11) and mushroom and spinach pie (£21).
SUNDAY
12pm It’s an hour’s drive to Dedham Vale – Constable Country. The 19th-century artist grew up here and painted the local mill a zillion times, but didn’t have access to The Crown, a nearby pub, where we share lamb with trimmings (£50). Bliss.
