Holbrook, Suffolk

Holbrook Academy is a secondary school with academy status located in the village of Holbrook, 5 miles (8 km) south of Ipswich in the English county of Suffolk. It currently has about 580 students aged 11–16.The Holbrook Sports Centre is located on the school site. It was opened to the public on 20 January 2007 by Sally Kasnika (a former member of the English women's Basketball Team). The centre was built after the school received money from the Lottery Fund. The headteacher Simon Letman died on the 13 April 2019. The interim Acting Headteacher was Nicola Mayhew. Tom Maltby was appointed as headteacher from September 2020.

The Shotley Peninsula is a rural area east of the A137 Ipswich-Colchester road located between the rivers Stour and Orwell in Suffolk, England. The peninsula is named after the settlements of Shotley and Shotley Gate which are situated near its south-eastern tip. Other villages on the peninsula include Chelmondiston, Erwarton (Arwarton), Freston, Harkstead, Holbrook, Stutton, Tattingstone, Wherstead and Woolverstone. The population was 10,310 according to the 2001 Census, approximately 12.4% of the total population of Babergh District.

The Royal Hospital School (usually shortened as "RHS" and historically nicknamed "The Cradle of the Navy") is a British co-educational fee-charging boarding and day school with naval traditions. The school admits pupils from age 11 to 18 (Years 7 to 13) through Common Entrance or the school's own exam. The school is regulated by Acts of Parliament.The school is located in the village of Holbrook, near Ipswich, Suffolk, England. The school's campus is of Queen Anne style and set in 200 acres (0.81 km2) countryside overlooking the River Stour, Suffolk on the Shotley Peninsula in an area known as Constable Country. The Royal Hospital School was established by a royal charter in 1712. It was originally located at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich. The school moved in 1933 to East Anglia. The school is the only United Kingdom independent boarding school to have ever been continuously granted the Queen's Banner and it flies its own Admiralty-approved Royal Hospital School Blue Ensign. It is one of only two UK schools whose students have the privilege of wearing Royal Navy uniforms, the other being Pangbourne College in Berkshire. The school is affiliated to the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC). Bernard de Neumann, a former pupil, described the school's significance as such: "Just as, according to the Duke of Wellington, the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, it may justifiably be claimed, that the establishment of... the British Empire, was charted and plotted in the classroom of... the Royal Hospital School."

Freston is a small village and civil parish in the Babergh district, in the county of Suffolk, England, located on the Shotley Peninsula, 4 miles south-east of Ipswich. In 2001 the parish had a population of 122, reducing slightly to 120 at the 2011 Census.

Alton Water (or Alton Reservoir) is a manmade reservoir located on the Shotley peninsula. It is the largest in Suffolk, with a perimeter of over 8 miles (13 km).

Harkstead is a village and civil parish in the county of Suffolk, England. The village is located on the northern bank of the River Stour estuary at Holbrook Bay, and is situated on the Shotley peninsula, around 7 miles (11 km) south of Ipswich. It is part of Babergh local government district. Most of the civil parish south of the road between the nearby villages of Lower Holbrook and Erwarton lies within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The civil parish is bounded by the neighbouring civil parishes of Holbrook, Chelmondiston and Arwarton. Large areas of the civil parish are classified as Scheduled Monuments due to the presence of ring ditches, post-medieval field boundaries and later prehistoric or Roman field systems.

Freston Tower is a six-storey red brick folly south of Ipswich, Suffolk in the village of Freston. It stands on the banks of the River Orwell.

Woolverstone is a small village and civil parish in Suffolk, England located on the Shotley peninsula. It is situated about 6.4 km (4.0 mi) south of Ipswich, near the southern shore of the River Orwell. In 2005 it had a population of 240, increasing to 265 at the 2011 census.It is now home to the Ipswich High School, which moved to the vacated premises of the former Woolverstone Hall School in 1992 after having been well established in Ipswich since 1878. The Woolverstone Marina and the Royal Harwich Yacht Club are also located in the vicinity. HMS Woolverstone, a Royal Navy landing craft training and loading base, was housed in the school and used moorings in the River Orwell between 1943 and 1944.

Freston and Cutler's Woods with Holbrook Park is a 142 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest south of Ipswich in Suffolk. The site is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural BeautyThese ancient woods have woodland types typical of spring-fed valleys and light sandy soils. Holbrook Park has coppice stools over 3 metres in diameter, among the largest in Britain. Sweet chestnut, which was introduced in the Middle Ages, is found widely, and other trees include the rare wild service tree.Holbrook Park is private, but a public footpath goes through Cutler's Wood.

Stutton is a small village and a civil parish approximately seven miles south of Ipswich in Suffolk, United Kingdom, on the Shotley peninsula. The village has two pubs, a community shop, a primary school, a village hall, a vets and a hair salon, an 18th-century period self-catering holiday cottage, bed and breakfast, and a holistic therapy centre. The village church of St. Peter's lies almost a mile from the village centre. The village is home to Stutton Hall, a 16th-century Tudor house. Stutton Hall was built by Sir Edmund Jermy (Knight) c. 1550. The hall is a red-brick house composed of an older east wing and a newer west wing. Stutton is surrounded by farming country. Close to the village lies Alton Water reservoir, popular for windsurfing and sailing, and about two miles east of Stutton in the neighbouring village of Holbrook is the Royal Hospital School. Stutton has two pubs: the Kings Head and the Gardeners Arms. They are both bars and restaurants.

Stour Estuary is a 2,523 hectare biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest which stretches from Manningtree to Harwich in Essex and Suffolk. It is also an internationally important wetland Ramsar site, a Special Protection Area and a Nature Conservation Review site. It is part of the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and there are Geological Conservation Review sites in Wrabness, Stutton, and Harwich Part of the site is managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and a small area is Wrabness Nature Reserve, a Local Nature Reserve managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust.The estuary is nationally important for thirteen species of wintering wildfowl and three on autumn passage, for coastal saltmarsh, sheltered muddy shores, two scarce marine invertebrates, scarce plants and three geological sites. Birds include redshank, black-tailed godwit and dunlin, and there are nationally important sponges, ascidians and red algae. Harwich has thirty ash layers dating to the Eocene Harwich Formation and the succeeding London Clay. Wrabness has the most complete succession of ashes showing the importance of volcanism in southern England in the early Eocene. Stutton has fossils dating to the mid-Pleistocene, including extinct mammals such as straight-tusked elephants, mammoths and giant deer.

In the early 1950s the London County Council obtained use of Woolverstone Hall near Ipswich, Suffolk, and some 50 acres (200,000 m2) of adjoining land for the purpose of establishing a secondary grammar boarding school for London boys. The premises were previously occupied by the LNS Woolverstone, a branch of the London Nautical School, some students of which were permitted to complete their education in the new environment, which commenced experimentally in 1950. In September 1951, the new school formally opened with mostly new teaching staff under a new headmaster, J. S. H. Smitherman. It became comprehensive in 1977, under the auspices of the Inner London Education Authority. The school closed in 1990 and the site was sold to the Girls' Day School Trust. In 1992 it became the home of Ipswich High School.