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A Suffolk Lane

~ A diary of my life in rural north Suffolk.

A Suffolk Lane

Tag Archives: heathland

Dunwich Heath – August 31st 2014

07 Thu May 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, walking

≈ 47 Comments

Tags

bell-heather, coastguard cottages, coastline, Dunwich Heath, dwarf gorse, erosion, gorse, heather, heathland, ling, marram, National Trust, sandlings, Sea Kale, shingle beach, Suffolk

057Dunwich Heath sign (640x427)

Richard, Elinor and I took a trip to Dunwich Heath at the end of August last year.  We wanted to go somewhere different to our usual places but didn’t want to make a long journey.

040Coastguards cottages (640x480)

The old coastguard cottages. The National Trust tearoom is situated in the end cottage.  The other cottages are rented out as holiday homes.

The County of Suffolk has six topographical regions each with its own distinct landscape features.  I live in High Suffolk with its boulder-clay soil but just a couple of miles to the East of us the soil changes and becomes sand and gravel.  This gravelly area is called The Sandlings and Dunwich Heath (part of the Sandlings) is right on the coast.  To quote the National Trust description of the area –

‘Dunwich Heath is where the Sandlings meets the sea.  It is 87 hectares (215 acres) of heather, gorse, grassland, woodland and crumbling sandy cliffs, as well as a mile of shifting sand and shingle beach.  The Sandlings landscape was created by early farmers thousands of years ago.  The sandy, free-draining soils became dominated by heather as farmers cleared the trees and introduced sheep to graze the land.

Within the Sandlings, only at Dunwich does the heathland extend to the cliff top – a rare example of coastal lowland heath.’

060Beach (640x384)

The shingle beach and cliffs

Late summer and early autumn is the best time to visit heathland as that is the time the heather is in flower.

005Path at Dunwich Heath (640x480)

We parked the car and walked to the beach first, as the seaside is Elinor’s favourite place to be.

007Heather, gorse and bracken (640x480)

Heather, gorse and bracken by the side of the path.  This heather is going to seed; I love the orange colour of the seed capsules.

009Sea Kale (640x480)

We found Sea Kale (Crambe maritima) as usual, with Marram grass (Ammophila arenaria) and Gorse behind it

012Heather on the shoreline (640x480)

Heather on the shoreline

010Dunwich cliffs (480x640)

You can see here what the cliffs are made of – sand and gravel in layers. It is no wonder they are crumbling away.

The sands are known as ‘crags’.  The southern sandling crags are the oldest – a shelly ‘Coralline Crag’ which was deposited in warm tropical conditions about 3.5 million years ago forms an island and is surrounded by a sea of ‘Red Crag’ which is also full of fossilised shells.  The northern crag known as ‘Norwich Crag’ is younger and is less than 2 million years old.  Dunwich Heath is part of the ‘Norwich Crag’.

I have found three Belemnite fossils in my garden.  Perhaps some gravel containing these fossils was brought to the area when the house was built or perhaps the land where we live is the border between the clay soil and the sandy soil.

011Dunwich cliffs (640x480)

The little holes are probably Sand Martin (Riparia riparia) nestholes. The pipe sticking out at the top left of the picture is probably a land drain.

014Dunwich cliffs (640x480)

Dunwich has disappeared into the sea at a rate of about 400 metres in 400 years. Houses and other buildings are still lost regularly. I don’t know what the structure at the top left of the picture is, or was!

020Southwold (640x480)

We could see the town of Southwold to the north.

024Dunwich Heath (640x480)

There is a large expanse of grassland here.

Richard and I left Elinor on the beach and went for a walk.

029Dunwich Heath (640x480)

There were plenty of flowers and grasses to see. Further away across the water meadows and marshes are the two nuclear energy plants at Sizewell.

Parasol fungus (Macrolepiota procera) about 2' tall!
Parasol fungus (Macrolepiota procera) about 2′ tall!
Honeysuckle - not native
Honeysuckle – not native
Common Ragwort - Senecio jacobaea
Common Ragwort – Senecio jacobaea
White Campion - Silene latifolia
White Campion – Silene latifolia
033Dunwich Heath - heather (640x480)

This is the sight we had come to see. The beautiful heath in flower.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

035Heather (640x480)

Heather (Calluna vulgaris) also known as Ling.

036Bell heather (640x480)

Bell Heather(Erica cinerea) – (the larger flowers)

037Dwarf Gorse (640x480)

Dwarf Gorse (Ulex minor)  There are plenty of Gorse (Ulex europaeus) bushes on the heath as well.

I heard and then saw a Dartford Warbler (Sylvia undata) on the top of a Gorse bush, but he was too far away to photograph.

043Plaque on cliff top (640x480)

A plaque on the cliff-top

044Plaque (480x640)

The plaque

050Clouds (640x441)

Clouds

053Beach (640x425)

The beach

This next photograph really makes me laugh!

055Me and Elinor (640x427)

Look at Elinor’s expression! Goodness knows what I must have been wittering on about.

‘Oh wad some power the giftie gie us / To see oursel’s as others see us! / It wad frae monie a blunder free us, / And foolish notion.’  Robert Burns

059Border Force ship at sea (640x422)

A Border Force ship patrolling the coast. The modern coastguards.

072Sea watch shelter (640x427)

A sea-watch shelter. Looking at the water can be interesting and calming in itself but often ships, boats and other craft can be seen as well as sea-birds and mammals such as dolphins and seals.

We ended our visit with a cake each and a drink of choice at the tea-room.

081Sunset (640x480)

A dramatic sunset when we got home.

 

Thank-you for visiting!

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I talk about what it's like living in a quiet part of Suffolk. I am a wife, mother and daughter, a practising Christian and love the natural world that surrounds me. I enjoy my life - most of the time!

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