Mining the Diaries 95: England
Weavers Cottage, Spinners Lane, Southwold, 20th May 2021
The weather continued to be grim for May: wind, rain and cold under leaden skies. It didn’t keep us in and bracing walks were rewarded by the sense of overcoming adversity, still, going out was as much a duty as a pleasure, (not that we would be lying about sun bathing if we were having balmy days).
In that spirit we drove up to Covehithe. The by-road road down to it from the B1127 was delightful – overhanging oaks and birch and banks of green and cream cow parsley and alexanders (horse parsley!). We parked outside the hamlet, a couple of hundred yards short of the church. A footpath led south from there, past fields of waving barley and paddocks with scores of pigs truffling in the mud; Covehithe Broad, a pewter expanse of water and soft reeds spread towards Easton Wood. The path left the fields and ran parallel with the cliff edge, through a tunnel of blackthorn and umbellifers, to emerge through dunes onto the wide sandy beach studded with stones. The dunes rose slowly to the north to form the cliffs of around 15-20 metres at Covehithe. The low cliffs, 2-3 metres high, were pocked with sand martin nest holes – a few solitary birds skittered by, usually one could expect to see them busily going in and out of the holes.
We walked north benefiting from a back wind, which sent small waves rolling up the beach. The cliffs stepped up slowly, friable umber coloured sandstone with horizontal bands of flints. They erode easily through high tides and water running off the fields – Covehithe may disappear completely in 100 years, some say much sooner. We picked up pebbles in an endless variety of shapes and colours and kept a few. Previous walkers had decorated a large rock with delicately balanced stone sculptures.
Back at the hamlet we explored St Andrews Church, a curious arrangement in which a thatched brick building of 1672 sits within the ruins of its very grand 14th century predecessor. We decided it was too cold to picnic outside among the broken pillars and ate our sandwiches in the car under a proud oak.