I visited Covehithe, Suffolk, on Friday (19th). It was my first time there since 1980, when I wrote about it for the East Anglian Magazine – the days when local and regional magazines carried such things, not just today’s consumer advertorials. That’s not the only thing that’s changed. I mentioned ‘a half mile walk to the beach’, but you can’t do that anymore: doom laden signs say ‘No entry’ and warn of the dangers of crumbling cliffs. A footpath now leads south to the beach near Covehithe Broad.
My article eulogised the ruins of St Andrew’s church. I wrote that they ‘are a moving sight…the chequered flushwork is pock marked…Nature is taking over…(they) float on a sea of grass which undulates and shivers in the wind…’. It was the ruins I wrote about, the ruins I photographed for a gloomy picture (above) and the ruins I remembered. On Friday the small thatched church of St Andrew, built in 1672 within the crumbling walls of its predecessor, came as a complete and pleasant surprise – a pleasant surprise too that it was open. Photo: St Andrew Covehithe, Suffolk, July 2019