A Week in the Weird

The two handles either side of the great upturned ale-jug of our island nation, Wales and East Anglia, are places which wear key elements of our character loudly and proudly—an obsession and familiarity with magic, the afterlife and demonic entities, permeable borders (including those between the living and the dead) and an intense dislike of authority. In this TED talk I will focus on the eastern lobe of our big-eared country. It’s familiar territory for me as an Essex boy who regularly holidayed up here as a boy, More helpfully, TLC and I’ve just spent a week in Suffolk, in a deconsecrated chapel a short drive from the coast.

It was supposed to be a holiday, a chance to get outside our skulls, relax and be humans after a rough-ridden start to the year. It’s me, though, innit. I just can’t help but be open to the maps and legends running just under the surface—no, sod that, right out in the daylight. In East Anglia the stories run wild and free, shedding their skins and changing the colour of their coat with every recitation. It’s a deep pool, which can change from mirror-calm (reflecting what is a whole other question) to choppy and treacherous.

Sculpture at Helmington Hall by David Harber

But let’s back up before swandiving into the briny waters, and give a location report. We planted our banner in Knodishall, a village with one pub, one shop and a common where burnt gorse sends knotted black tendrils up towards the sky. Sculptural and creepy all at once. Ebeneezer Chapel, our home base, was built in 1857. It’s a light, bright and airy space, a simple hymn to a simple god. The Methodists who used to use it moved out into an 80s-styled blockhouse next door which looks like a run-down community centre. Practical sorts, them Methodists.

From here we were a short drive from Aldeburgh and Southwold on the coast, inland towns like Woodbridge and even Ipswich if we felt the urge. But it’s the castles and sites of antiquity which twang our heartstrings. The ruins of a Benedictine abbey at Leiston. The castle on the top of the hill at Framlington, once site of Mary Queen Of Scot’s declaration of her right to the throne and home to the Bigods, a regular thorn in the side of the royal family (so much so that Henry II built another castle at Orford just to keep an eye on them pesky barons). And of course, the most significant archeological epicentre in the country, which reconfigured the way we think about the Anglo-Saxons and our early history—Sutton Hoo.

The grounds of Sutton Hoo are where story and history twine like the decorative animals in Saxon gold jewellery. Some parts of the tale are agreed upon—the estate is home to an ancient burial site, which includes the funeral mound of a great and important man, possibly even a king. Sent to his rest in a forty-man longboat surrounded by precious decoration, which was famously rediscovered in the late-30s by a semi-professional archaeologist under the guidance of the lady of the manor. The discoveries at Sutton Hoo would radically remap our ideas on post-Roman, pre-English society.

The burial mounds at Sutton Hoo.

But there’s a lot which is sheer supposition. We don’t know who the nobleman in the longboat was. The most likely candidate is the Anglian King Rædwald, who died in 620AD, and the National Trust presentation at Sutton Hoo leans heavily on that, although they too agree this is educated guesswork. Similarly, the design of ‘King Rædwald’s’ golden helmet, the clear brand image of Sutton Hoo, is a second crack at what it actually looked like. It was pieced together from hundreds of different fragments, all of which had been immersed in acidic East Anglian soil for hundreds of years, also subject to tomb raiders. Again, the Trust freely admit that, with advances in technology or further finds on what is still a working archeological site, that design may have to be revised.

We should also mention the stranger aspects of the tale. How, for example, Edith Pretty guided her team to break ground in a location shown to her in dreams and visions. That bit didn’t really make it into The Dig, the 2021 film version of the Sutton Hoo discoveries. An element which didn’t really need to be pushed given the inherent drama around the excavations, perhaps.

There is a definite atmosphere around the burial mounds at Sutton Hoo, a vibration in the air which is easily picked up in any cemetery. The location helps, of course—a quiet field under the huge open skies of East Anglia with nothing to hear but birdsong. And, if you’re attentive, the slow murmur of the dead drifting softly in their earthy beds…

Look, it’s hard not to go down the whole Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World route when you’re wandering around old ruins and grave mounds. I can see why authors like Lionel Fanthorpe, who has written extensively on the subject (as well as banging out 180-odd novels under a dizzying array of pseudonyms) would dip his pen nib in purple ink. It’s all too easy to fall under the spell of these sites, these stories, this mythology.

Beach huts at Southwold

I’m a child of the boom times in esoteric detection—the books of Erich Van Daniken, the aforementioned Arthur C. Clarke series, the classic magazine partwork The Unexplained. Fortean Times, in print since 1973, bloomed in this rich soil. I still subscribe.

It was a time when Uri Geller would regularly bend spoons to general bafflement on chat shows, and stage magicians ruled Saturday night telly. A credulous time, sure, but one where you had to do the legwork to get anyone to listen to you. The Facebook conspiracists or goofballs like Graham Hancock don’t have to try so hard and therefore don’t have the same charm. There’s a shrillness, a need to double down on any half-baked claim of hidden sub-aquatic civilisations or chem trails injecting government trackers into our tear ducts or something.

I’m still keen on a good yarn, delighting in crazy coincidences and bizarre happenings. But I’m also a bit more careful about what I choose to believe. My skeptic-sense tingles at phrases like ‘it is said’, ‘legends relate,’ or any heavy lifting done by unconfirmed sources, hearsay or rumour. Blame my media studies degree. It gave me the power to know that the answer to any headline that finishes with a question is ‘no’. I’ll happily plunge into the dark woods in search of the unexplained. But I make sure my bullshit detector has fresh batteries and the NOPE filter is turned up allll the way.

So, anyway. On Tuesday TLC and I went looking for UFOs.

In the autumn of 1980, two American soldiers on duty at RAF Woodbridge saw strange lights in the trees just the other side of the boundary fences which backed onto the ancient woodland of Rendlesham Forest. They investigated, and encountered not only lights but a silvery object hovering above them, which shot away at unbelievable speed once they pointed guns at it. The so-called Rendlesham Incident is now part of ‘foo lore and the Forestry Commission, gods bless ‘em, have chosen to embrace the strange with a dedicated UFO trail. A three-mile trek through the woods, it follows the path the airforce-men took on that fateful night, offering you the chance to retrace their steps. It doesn’t really offer any great insight, but does allow you to see the eerie abandoned airfield at RAF Woodbridge. If nothing else, it’s a nice woodland walk.

Oh, and there’s this.

The truth is etc etc.

I have a soft spot for UFOlogy. Yes, fine, X-Files, yes fine Gillian Anderson (oh SO fine) and of course the SF geek in me is prone to enjoy stories about aliens. I also love that this stuff is so prevalent in East Anglia, the part of the country heaviest with RAF and USAF sites. Who knows what really went on behind the tall wire fences? Is the truth out there somewhere? Can you pack it in with the unanswerable questions, Rob?

Fine. Join me for one last journey then, as we explore (insert best B-movie trailer voice-over here) The Island Of Mystery.

Orford Ness, a spit of land jutting out of the harbour of the otherwise tiny, pretty fishing town of Orford was, for the best part of the 20th century, a weapons testing facility for the British military. Initially used to finesse the methods used by World War 1 bombers to deliver ordnance (set fuse, chuck bomb over side, hope) it became an important place for atomic weapons research during the Cold War. The official line is that no fissionable material ever came to Suffolk—instead, tests focussed on the warheads and explosives that would be used to trigger the nukes. It was also home to esoteric radar experiments, culminating in the back-scatter array code-named COBRA MIST. A radio jamming facility, it was also used up until 2010 to broadcast the BBC World Service into Central and Eastern Europe.

All of this is enough to give me the techno tingles. The coolest part is that the National Trust now own the land. From Easter to October, a couple of days a week, you can prebook the minute-long ferry ride and spend time on the island. Readership, you know I couldn’t resist.

You didn’t see me, alright?

Orford Ness does not disappoint. It’s full of abandoned bunkers, old labs installations (which, even more intriguingly you can’t quite get up close to) and generally has the air of a 70’s SF-style Forbidden Zone. It’s also teeming with wildlife—the Trust remit is to gradually let all the military architecture gracefully rot away, turning the whole place into a birders paradise. TLC and I were finally talked into an RSPB membership during a visit to Minsmere early in the week, so came with cameras and binoculars at the ready (mine fresh from an antiques shop in Thorpeness for a princely 28 quid. They look good and work well, and the retro vibe suited the environment). I felt like one of Tarkovsky’s Stalkers, edging around strange monoliths in search of a higher truth.

Labs 1 and 2.

The one building you really can’t get near is the low-slung building which was home to COBRA MIST. Off in the distance and ringed with antennae, it all looked a bit well-kept for an abandoned facility. As if the stories of unexploded mines and (more authentically for a National Trust site) path closures due to nesting birds are in place to keep you away. I had a good old look with my trusty Kershaws. It all looked very clean and carefully maintained to me. There are rumours that COBRA MIST was actually an attempt to build an EMP weapon, able to shut down electronic systems from afar, knocking out enemy aircraft before they got anywhere near our shores. Can we say for sure it was just a radar site? What are they not telling us?

Tres Tarkovsky.

YES RIGHT FINE OK less of the Fanthorpes. Seriously, if you’re into abandoned militaria or fancy a wander in one of England’s least accessible bird-watching sites, Orford Ness is a must. You have to prebook via the National Trust and places understandably fill up quickly.

I’ve made a lot out of the general strange vibe of East Anglia, but it’s also a lovely place to spend a week. If you want castles, there are plenty. If you want seaside, fill your boots, the coastline is glorious. Towns like Aldeburgh and Southwold have everything you could ask for. You can’t turn a corner without finding a pub (many run by local legends Adnams, whose brewery scents the air deliciously at Southwold). As long as you’re not a hill-walker or mad into your city breaks, Suffolk will do you nicely. Just be prepared for things to turn quirky when you least expect it.

The Quantum Tunnelling Telescope at the end of Southwold Pier.

At Southwold, the recently-refurbished pier contains sculptures and a home-built arcade courtesy of Tim Hunkin and his band of mad scientists. The beach at Thorpeness is one of the few with vegetated shingle, clumps of sea kale, Japanese rose and sedums growing straight out of the pebbles. A fragile ecosystem, but one which clings tenaciously to life despite all the challenges. Not a place to build sandcastles.

And then of course, it’s hard to get away from the white dome of Sizewell, the nuclear power plant, which seems to peek into view on any coastal trip. There are signs everywhere protesting plans to build a new facility there. There’s NIMBYism, then there’s ‘please don’t build another nuclear reactor on the beach.’ I can only agree.

Perhaps it’s me. You can probably have a nice, normal family holiday in Suffolk with nothing weird to report, and I’m the one whose radar is pinged by the UFOs and ghosties and unexplained occurances. It made for a fun old week, though. And let’s face it, if I really wanted to lean into the strange, all I’d have to do is go north of Ely. Norfolk’s where all the really odd shit happens.

All images by me. Featured image is of Barbara Hepworth’s The Family Of Man, on display at Snape Maltings—also well worth a visit if you’re in the area).