Alston, Suffolk

The River Orwell flows through the county of Suffolk in England from Ipswich to Felixstowe. Above Ipswich, the river is known as the River Gipping, but its name changes to the Orwell at Stoke Bridge, where the river becomes tidal. It broadens into an estuary at Ipswich, where the Ipswich dock has operated since the 7th century, and then flows into the North Sea at Felixstowe, the UK's largest container port, after joining the River Stour at Shotley forming Harwich harbour. The large Orwell Bridge carries the A14 trunk road over the estuary to the south of Ipswich.

Trimley Marshes is a 77 hectare nature reserve west of Trimley St Mary, on the outskirts of Felixstowe in Suffolk. It is managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. It is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Orwell Estuary Site of Special Scientific Interest, the Stour and Orwell Estuaries Ramsar site internationally important wetland site and Special Protection Area under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds.This site has a reservoir, islands, reedbeds and marshes. It has a rich variety and number of birds, such as redshankss, avocets, oystercatchers, little grebes and gadwalls.There is access to the site from Cordy's Lane.

Trimley St. Martin is a parish and village that lies between the rivers Orwell and the Deben, on the long narrow tongue of land from Ipswich to Felixstowe referred to as the Colneis Hundred. The village, and its neighbour Trimley St. Mary, are famous for their adjacent churches, which were built as the result of a historical family feud. St. Martin's church is the northerly church (at grid reference TM 276 370).

Colneis is a hundred of Suffolk, consisting of 16,712 acres (67.63 km2).Running from the south-east outskirts of Ipswich to the North Sea coast, the hundred is made up of the land between the estuaries of the rivers Orwell and Deben. It is one of the smallest in Suffolk, being only about four miles (6.4 km) wide and ten miles (16 km) long between its border with Carlford Hundred and the cliffs at Felixstowe. It lies within the Colneis Deanery, in the Archdeaconry of Suffolk. It was one of seven Saxon hundreds grouped together as the Wicklaw Hundreds.Listed as Colneyse in the Domesday Book, the origin of the name is not known for sure, though the suffix -ness, meaning "headland" seems probable. The col may be the old name of the Deben before its renaming after Debenham.The name survives as that of a Junior School in Felixstowe.

Trimley railway station is on the Felixstowe Branch Line in the east of England, serving the village of Trimley St. Mary, Suffolk. It is 14 miles 5 chains (22.6 km) down the line from Ipswich and 82 miles 64 chains (133.3 km) measured from London Liverpool Street; it is situated between Derby Road and Felixstowe. Its three-letter station code is TRM. It was opened by the Great Eastern Railway (GER) in 1891 and built to a design by the company's chief architect, W. N. Ashbee; it was one of only two stations outside Essex to be built in the New Essex, or Ashbee, style. A branch line for goods trains to the port of Felixstowe was opened at Trimley in 1987. Today it is managed by Greater Anglia, which also operates all passenger trains that call.

Trimley St. Mary is a parish and village on the outskirts of Felixstowe, on a low-lying peninsula between Harwich Harbour and the River Deben, in Suffolk, England. It lies on the Roman road between Felixstowe and Ipswich. Its eastern border is Spriteshall Lane. The village, and its neighbour Trimley St. Martin, are famous for their adjacent churches, which were built as the result of a historical family feud. St. Mary's church is the southerly church (at grid reference TM 276 369). The village has a number of shops, and two pubs. Trimley railway station serves the village on the Felixstowe Branch Line. According to the 2011 census, the population of Trimley was 3,665.In the 1870s, Trimley St Mary was described in this way: Trimley ST. Martin and T.St. Mary are two parishes in Woodbridge district. The churches stand in one churchyard, and are both rubble buildings.

The Port of Felixstowe, in Felixstowe, Suffolk, is the United Kingdom's largest container port, dealing with 48% of Britain's containerised trade. In 2017, it was ranked as 43rd busiest container port in the world and 8th in Europe, with a handled traffic of 3.85 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). In 2019 it was ranked the UKs 7th busiest port.The port is operated by the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company, which was set up under an Act of Parliament, the Felixstowe Railway and Pier Act 1875, and so is one of the few limited companies in the UK that do not have the word "Limited" in their name. Much of the land on which it sits is owned by Trinity College, Cambridge, which in the 1930s bought some land near Felixstowe which included a dock that was too small to be included in the National Dock Labour Scheme. In 1967, it set up Britain's first container terminal for £3.5m in a deal with Sea-Land Service. Because container shipping is much more economically efficient in bulk, this early start led to it becoming the UK's largest container port, despite its previous insignificance to the shipping market. Felixstowe is owned by Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) Group and has always been privately owned. In 1951, Gordon Parker, an agricultural merchant, bought the Felixstowe Dock & Railway Company, which at the time was handling only grain and coal. In 1976, Felixstowe was bought by European Ferries. In June 1991, P&O sold Felixstowe to Hutchison Whampoa of Hong Kong for £90m. In June 1994, Hutchison Whampoa's Hutchison International Port Holdings bought out Orient Overseas International's 25% stake in Felixstowe for £50m. On 21 August 2022, the first strike in thirty years occurred when about 1,900 Unite members walked out in a dispute over pay.The port has its own Port of Felixstowe Police, fire, and ambulance services.

Kirton is a village and a civil parish in the shire county of Suffolk, England, situated off the A14 road, about 4.5 km (2.8 mi) from Felixstowe and around 10 km (6.2 mi) from Ipswich. The closest train station to Kirton is Trimley. According to the 2011 census, Kirton had a population of 1,146. It is located between the River Deben and the River Orwell. The village of Kirton covers a total area of 8.3 km2 (3.2 sq mi). As the county of Suffolk lacks quarries, many of the buildings are made from flint, clay and timber.Kirton and Falkenham share the Parish Council, the school, the Village Hall, and most of the organisations. Kirton has a church and it also has access to a primary school.

Shotley Battery was built in 1865 on the Shotley Peninsula to guard the port of Felixstowe, within HMS Ganges Naval Training school, on the same site as an existing Martello Tower.

Harwich Lifeboat Station is a Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) station located in the town of Harwich in the English county of Essex. The station is positioned on the southern side at the mouth of the River Orwell estuary. The station serves a particularly busy section of coastline with Harwich being a very busy ferry terminal. Across the estuary is the Port of Felixstowe which is the United Kingdom's busiest container port.

HMS Gipsy was a G-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy during the 1930s. She spent most of the pre-war period as part of the Mediterranean Fleet. The ship was transferred to the British Isles to escort shipping in local waters shortly after the beginning of World War II. Less than a month after her arrival she struck a mine outside Harwich and sank with the loss of 30 of her crew. Her wreck was salvaged and slowly scrapped over the course of the war.

Upper Mill or Walton Mill is a Grade II listed smock mill at Walton, Suffolk, England, which has been conserved.