Summer Walks in Suffolk – Dunwich circular walking route

Another glorious but windy day in Suffolk where my walk started from outside our front door in Walberswick. I packed up my rucksack with plenty of water as I find the bracing sea air makes you quite thirsty and the first 45 minutes of the walk was going to be across the shingle to the tea rooms at Dunwich by the spacious car park.

Walking Poles are an absolute essential on the shingle as they give you greater stability and help you maintain a steady pace. They also take your mind off the fact you have a very long and straight blustery coastal beach walk ahead. It still didn’t deter me from wearing my walking shorts and a sturdy pair of walking boots for the 8 miles ahead of me on this circular walk around the beaches, marshes and heaths.

Sandlings Walk Bridleway Signpost Dunwich Suffolk May 2011

For more photographs of this walk click here: Summer Walks in Suffolk – Dunwich circular walking route.

The irony of this walk is that Dunwich was made famous by once being the largest medieval town in England but now it has all been lost to the sea. The cliffs have suffered from extremely bad erosion from the North Sea and it’s winds.

At the Anchor pub in Walberswick there is a footpath sign that I followed until I reach the beach where I turned right and braved the shingle for 45 minutes until I reached the car park at Dunwich. Walking up to the road I turned left and just after the fork I turned left on to a footpath that climbs around to the Dunwich Greyfriars 13^th Century Friary ruins following the field edge until turning left at the end and then bearing left following the cliff edge and the roar of the seas below. I then skirted around Greyfriars Wood and walked underneath a quaint footbridge to a pathway between houses that then lead to the road and a sign shortly after in the trees for Dairy House.

Here I turned left and walked along the obvious pathway and signposts through the main part of Greyfriars Wood until I reached the road where I turned left and walked past 2 caravan sites on my left. At the end of this road I entered the Dunwich National Trust area where I turned left before enetering the track to the car park. This followed the edge of the cliffs to the National Trust’s Coastguard Cottages and kept left around them to the small garden and view of the Sizewell Nuclear Power Station.

Turning right to find the Heath Barn Field Centre I followed the signpost for a short while before turning right up a sandy path that climbs up gradually through Dunwich Heath. Keeping on Sandlings Walk I followed the obvious pathway in a northerly direction until I reached a crossing of paths at Mount Pleasant where I continued in a northerly direction crossing a road until I reached Sandy Lane Farm where I turned right to walk down a wide shaded path. This lead me to the main Dunwich road with St James’s Church on my right.

I then turned left for a short while before turning right at the Bridge Nurseries and Cafe which then set me on course for the final stage of the walk which was to follow the pthways with least resistance across the edge of Dunwich Forest and then Dunwich Marshes with the sea on my right hand side at all times and heading in a northerly direction.

The pathways then start to slowly bend right towards the beach and after passing the caravan park on my left I found the pathway where I first started the walk and ended up back on the road by the Anchor pub some 3 hours later. Time for lunch!