Dunwich Heath

Minsmere–Walberswick Heaths and Marshes are a Special Area of Conservation and Site of Special Scientific Interest in the English county of Suffolk. The site is located on the North Sea coast between Southwold and Sizewell, extending over an area of coastline around 7 miles (11 km) in length. The site is also designated as a Special Protection Area, part of the Minsmere–Walberswick European Marine Site and contains areas designated as Ramsar sites and Natura 2000 sites. It lies within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is made up of a "complex mosaic" of marshes, reed beds, shingle banks and lowland heath habitats. The SSSI covers an area of 2,325.89 hectares (8.98 sq mi; 23.26 km2). It is a composite site and was formed by the almagamation of the Minsmere Level, Walberswick and Brick Kiln Walks SSSI units. It extends from Hen Reedbeds and Southwold Common north of the River Blyth, through Walberswick and Dunwich to Westleton, Minsmere and Eastbridge to the north of Sizewell nuclear power stations. The area includes the Suffolk Coast National Nature Reserve sites at Hen Reedbeds, Walberswick and Dingle Marshes, the National Trust property at Dunwich Heath and the Minsmere RSPB reserve. It is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade I, and covers two nature reserves managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, Dingle Marshes and Hen Reedbeds.

Minsmere is a place in the English county of Suffolk. It is located on the North Sea coast around 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north of Leiston and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south-east of Westleton within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB. It is the site of the Minsmere RSPB reserve and the original site of Leiston Abbey.

RSPB Minsmere is a nature reserve owned and managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) at Minsmere, Suffolk. The 1,000-hectare (2,500-acre) site has been managed by the RSPB since 1947 and covers areas of reed bed, lowland heath, acid grassland, wet grassland, woodland and shingle vegetation. It lies within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Suffolk Heritage Coast area. It is conserved as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area and Ramsar site. The nature reserve is managed primarily for bird conservation, particularly through control and improvement of wetland, heath and grassland habitats, with particular emphasis on encouraging nationally uncommon breeding species such as the bittern, stone-curlew, marsh harrier, nightjar and nightingale. The diversity of habitats has also led to a wide variety of other animals and plants being recorded on the site. Before becoming a nature reserve, the area was the site of an ancient abbey and a Tudor artillery battery. The marshes were reclaimed as farmland in the 19th century, but were re-flooded during World War II as a protection against possible invasion. The reserve has a visitor centre, eight bird hides and an extensive network of footpaths and trails. Entry is free for RSPB members. Potential future threats to the site include flooding or salination as climate change causes rising sea levels, coastal erosion and possible effects on water levels due to the construction of a new reactor at the neighbouring Sizewell nuclear power stations.

The remains of an unknown armed cargo vessel dating to the sixteenth to seventeenth century were identified off Dunwich, Suffolk, England in 1993. The site was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act on 12 July 1994. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England.

Greyfriars, Dunwich was a Franciscan friary in Dunwich in the English county of Suffolk. The friary was founded before 1277 by Richard FitzJohn and his wife Alice and dissolved in 1538. The original site, which had 20 friars in 1277 when it first appears in records, was threatened by coastal erosion and the friary was moved inland in 1289. Many of the buildings are believed to have been destroyed on dissolution, with the remains used as a house, a town hall and a jail at various times. Modern remains consist of a precinct wall, two gatehouses and some two-storey walls believed to be the remains of a cloister building, possibly a refectory or infirmary building. The site was partly excavated in the 1930s and 1990s, with geophysical surveys being carried out on the site. The site was surveyed in 2011 as part of a dig by archaeological television programme Time Team. A geophysical survey using ground-penetrating radar confirmed a range of wall features and other anomalies in the precinct and trenches uncovered carved medieval stonework and medieval window glass fragments. Geophysical surveys suggest that the friary church may have been up to 60 metres in length. Some restoration work was carried out in 2008, including the strengthening of some buildings and repair of collapsed section of the precinct wall. The site was then placed on the Heritage at Risk Register, leading to a £250,000 restoration project in 2012 by English Heritage and Suffolk County Council. The management of the site was taken over by a local voluntary group, the Dunwich Greyfriars Trust, in October 2013. The transfer occurred after budget cuts by the county council meant that the running costs would no longer be met by the council. The remains are classified as a Grade II* listed building and most of the site as a Scheduled Monument.

Minsmere River is a river in the English county of Suffolk which flows into the North Sea at Minsmere. The river is formed from the River Yox at Yoxford before flowing through Middleton, Eastbridge and Minsmere. It flows to the south of Minsmere RSPB reserve helping to form many of the wetland habitats at the reserve. The river valley was largely drained and used as agricultural land in the past. The original course of the river, the Minsmere Old River, runs to the north of the Minsmere New Cut, an artificial drainage channel built in 1812. This reaches the sea at Minsmere Sluice, a tidal sluice which discharges water from the channels into the sea.

The Old Town Hall is a former municipal building in St James's Street in Dunwich, a village in Suffolk, England. The building, which is currently operates as holiday accommodation, is a Grade II listed building.

Dunwich () is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB around 92 miles (148 km) north-east of London, 9 miles (14 km) south of Southwold and 7 miles (11 km) north of Leiston, on the North Sea coast. In the Anglo-Saxon period, Dunwich was the capital of the Kingdom of the East Angles, but the harbour and most of the town have since disappeared due to coastal erosion. At its height it was an international port similar in size to 14th-century London. Its decline began in 1286 when a storm surge hit the East Anglian coast, followed by two great storms in February and December of 1287, until it eventually shrank to the village it is today. Dunwich is possibly connected with the lost Anglo-Saxon placename Dommoc. The population of the civil parish at the 2001 census was 84, which increased to 183 according to the 2011 Census, though the area used by the Office of National Statistics for 2011 also includes part of the civil parish of Westleton. There is no parish council; instead there is a parish meeting.

Dingle Marshes is a 93-hectare (230-acre) wildlife reserve on the North Sea coast of the English county of Suffolk. The reserve is located between Dunwich and Walberswick, approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) south-west of Southwold. The marshes make up part of the Suffolk Coast National Nature Reserve along with reserves at Walberswick and Hen Reedbeds. They are owned jointly by the RSPB and Suffolk Wildlife Trust and are managed by these two organisations and Natural England. The site is in the Dunwich Heaths and Marshes Nature Conservation Review site, Grade I, the Minsmere-Walberswick Ramsar internationally important wetland site, the Minsmere to Walberswick Heaths and Marshes Special Area of Conservation, and the Minsmere-Walberswick Special Protection Area under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. It is also within the Minsmere-Walberswick Heaths and Marshes Site of Special Scientific Interest and is a Natura 2000 site. It is an internationally important site for the starlet sea anemone as well as a key site for bitterns and marsh harriers within the UK. It was purchased in 1999 at a cost of £1 million, aided by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund of £559,000.

Potton Hall Fields, Westleton is a 16.7-hectare (41-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) west of Dunwich in Suffolk. It is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This site comprises two gently sloping fields on sandy, well drained soil. It has been designated an SSSI because it has a population of several thousand plants of the nationally rare red-tipped cudweed in large patches throughout the site. The plant is only found in two other counties in Britain. There is no public access to the site but it can be viewed from Sandlings Walk.

Dunwich Forest is an area of forest and lowland heath around 1 mile (1.6 km) north-west of the village of Dunwich in the English county of Suffolk. The forest covers an area of approximately 9 square kilometres (900 ha; 3.5 sq mi) and was originally planted by the Forestry Commission. The forest is within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is in the area known as the Suffolk Sandlings. South of the reserve is the National Trust property of Dunwich Heath, one of the largest remaining areas of lowland heath on the Suffolk coast, and the RSPB reserve at Minsmere. To the north and east of the forest are Dingle Marshes, part of the Suffolk Coast National Nature Reserve. The Forestry Commission (now Forestry England) purchased land from the Dunwich and Westleton estates during the 1920s. Following the acquisition of this land, they began an afforestation programme to develop a conifer plantation, which became Dunwich Forest. The forest is now a mix of broadleaved and coniferous woodland with some areas of more open heath. In 2006 Forestry England began work on a rewilding programme at Dunwich. Working with the Suffolk Wildlife Trust and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, they plan to gradually replace conifers in the northern area of the forest with broad-leaved trees and to convert areas in the south of the forest to lowland heath, one of the rarest British habitats. Suffolk Wildlife Trust has introduced Dartmoor ponies to the northern area which it manages as a reserve 270 hectares (670 acres) in size.

Eastbridge is a village in the English county of Suffolk. It is located approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Leiston, 2 miles (3.2 km) from the North Sea in the parish of Theberton, immediately south of the Minsmere RSPB reserve. It borders the Minsmere River which cuts through an area of drained and undrained wetland known as the Minsmere Level. Eastbridge Windpump, which stood on the Minsmere Level marshes, is preserved at the Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket. The marshes are also the site of the remains of the medieval chapel of St Mary which stands on the original site of Leiston Abbey. The chapel ruins date from the 12th-century and include a World War II pill box which was built into the walls to protect against invasion. The site is a scheduled monument. Located in Eastbridge is the Eels Foot Inn, an ale-house dating as far back as 1533 which obtained a full license to sell alcohol in 1950. Because of its proximity to the sea, the pub was a favourite stop of travellers, drovers and smugglers. The pub is the main feature of the small village. It is associated with folk music, and hosts a weekly gathering in which people sing songs and play folk tunes.