The Cottage

The flint-faced cottage was built in 1840, one of
three Suffolk cottages in the same row. (The fourth
was built much more recently).



Until I bought it in March 2000 it was virtually
untouched, with no running water and a
working privy in the garden. It has now been
carefully restored, keeping many of the
original features, including the Suffolk brick
floor in the sitting room and the original
crooked fireplace beam, which now frames



a wood-burning stove. The sitting room is
furnished with simple wicker furniture
which has extremely comfortable
duck-down filled upholstery.

The sitting room leads through to a well-designed
kitchen with attractive painted cupboards and a

floor of reclaimed Norfolk pammets (the local
terracotta tiles). The dining area is a conservatory
extension of the kitchen. It is south-facing and



therefore light and sunny even (sometimes) in
winter.

French windows lead onto a small patio
at the rear and beyond is a dog-legged
garden (partly shared). At the far end of the
garden there are steps leading up to a

private high and secluded brick patio with
fine views over the rooftops of the village

and the surrounding fields (Middle Cottage
is the one with the chimney in the centre of
the picture).

Back in the cottage itself, at the top of the
winding stairs which lead up from the sitting
room, there are two bedrooms, one with


 

a double bed. There is also a bathroom with
a two-thirds-length bath and shower above.

The cottage is snug, light and airy. Because of its
exceptional situation - on a quiet lane with a garden
backing onto the common - it is also almost always
wonderfully peaceful. For most of the time the loudest
noise you are likely to hear outside is the sound of
birdsong.

The comments left by visitors', some of whom are veterans
of Suffolk holiday cottages, speak for themselves:

Westleton



is an attractive
village. It has a
thirteenth-century
church,

a village green,




a duckpond:



and a splendid second-hand bookshop in
the old chapel, now famous as a scene of
seduction in Julie Myerson's novel
Something Might Happen (2003):

Chapel Books, Westleton

(Bang the tin can on the counter with the
stick provided and Bob, the ever-
genial proprietor, will be almost sure
to emerge; he may even offer you a cup
of tea.)

Chapel Books, Westleton, photograph-and-mixed-media collage
by Tiggy Gabrielle Jackson Newcomb

There is also a well-stocked village shop and
post office:

Lincoln's Village Store by Keith Thickett

And two pubs - the excellent White Horse Inn,
often frequented by locals, and the Crown



said to be England's oldest working
coaching inn.

The coast

The nearest beach is some three miles away at
Dunwich - a medieval city which was claimed
by the sea centuries ago and where now only a
small cluster of houses remains.



Dunwich has a shingle beach. Haunted by ghosts
and fraught with mystery, it was the setting for
M. R James's classic early 20th century mystery
tale, Whistle and I'll come to you.

It also has the Ship Inn, whose atmospheric main
bar should not be missed, and whose fish and chips
(served with stir fry vegetables in the evenings), is
usually good.

But if you prefer a
sandy beach
you have only to
walk a few miles
north across Dingle
marshes and



the reed-beds,
passing close to
the old disused



windpump to




Walberswick, where
you can sunbathe
in the dunes amidst
the tussocked grass:

 
Walberswick beach on a non-sunbathing day



Ditto


or walk down to the harbour:



from where you
can, for 50p, take a
ferry ride:



across the river Blyth:



to Southwold:



Alternatively you can retrace your steps
(it's only five miles or so) and, if you walk
south from Dunwich instead of north:



(He's going the wrong way)

you might, if you are
lucky, end up in
Aldeburgh



before the shops
shut, in which case
do not even think
of failing to visit the



Aldeburgh Bookshop
which is probably the
only bookshop in
the world with an
assistant called
Jane Austen (well actually Austin)
and where, apart
from anything else, you
can buy the Suffolk
cards I publish such as:



Southwold, 1937, by
Stanley Spencer (print
available!)

or



Dunwich, c. 1830 by
JMW Turner

or:

Aldeburgh,1992 by Victoria
Parker-Jervis

Then it's



home again for tea.


Minsmere

In the top corner of the garden is a gate which

leads via a winding footpath

directly onto Westleton Common:



A walk of a couple of miles across
the common will bring you to Minsmere:



This is the RSPB's most visited
reserve, home to avocets and others.

The marshes and wetlands of Minsmere
are seen here



from the air, with the North Sea lapping
against the crumbling sandstone cliffs just
south of Dunwich.

Then, after a supper of fish and chips with stir-
fried vegetables in the Ship Inn, it's home again,
where you will find yourself welcomed by



one of the former residents, the original
framed photograph of whom (c. 1890) has
been passed down with the cottage like an
heirloom and now hangs in the sitting-room.

Outside, at least, nothing much has changed.

And inside it's just as peaceful.

I will be taking all bookings directly for any weeks
after November 3 2007 (and this includes the Christmas and New
Year weeks starting on 22 and 29 December 2007).

To inquire about booking the cottage for your holiday,
please email me - richardwebster@ntlworld.com -
or telephone 01865 558596 or visit the new Middle Cottage
website at www.suffolkcottage.net
___________________________________

Links

If you would prefer bed and breakfast in beautiful, tranquil surroundings, try my friends Bob and Annie (click below):

To visit my Suffolk Cards website ( for fine art postcards, greeting
cards and prints of the Suffolk coast) click below:




For RJ's Paradise Journey through Suffolk, which
takes a detailed, well-illustrated look at both Westeleton  and Dunwich, click here

There is an excellent collection of Walberswick
photographs on the village website.

On Southwold try this photogallery page
or visit Southwold Scene not forgetting to
call in at their page on the Walberswick
Crabbing Championships .

For a quite different perspective, visit the
the website of local cartoonist, inventor and
engineer, Tim Hunkin. Hunkin's wonderful collection of
robots and slot-machines on Southwold's newly
rebuilt pier is itself enough to make a visit to the
town essential. 

For a more rural view, go to the Suffolk Coasts
and Heath website and do not on any account miss Simon's
Suffolk Churches, especially the pages on Southwold
and Blythburgh. (See also the entry on St Peter's,
Westleton and, for the latest news about St. Peter's,
visit the key change website.)

The splendid websiite of the Southwold Museum is also
well worth a visit, though it has sadly removed
the excellent page given over to the 2004
exhibition on George Orwell's time in Southwold.

It was to his lover in Southwold that Orwell, wanting
to finish the book he was working on, wrote:

'I think perhaps it would be best for me to
go to some quiet place in France where I can live
cheaply and have less temptation from the World,
the Flesh & the Devil than at S'wold.'

You have been warned.

Though in Westleton you will be safe.

Probably.

Just don't go in the bookshop.