Bailey Bridge

This morning we drove down to Walberswick in Suffolk.

After lunch at The Bell Inn we took the passenger ferry across the River Blyth to Southwold. Although the ferry has been around since the 13th century the current family have been rowing these waters for 125 years.

On the way back we had to make the longer journey along the harbour to the Bailey Bridge. This is the old Southwold Railway bridge, a light railway opened in 1879 that ran from Halesworth to Southwold but closed in 1929.

Walberswick was a busy port trading in fish, cheese, corn, bacon and timber from as early as the 13th century right up to the First World War. In the 19th century the romantic ruins, the pretty village, the river, the beach, the surrounding marshes and the open skies attracted many artists - the most well known probably being Philip Wilson Steer and Charles Rennie Mackintosh.There is still a thriving artistic community whose members exhibit regularly in the village and some of the better known galleries further afield.