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Updated: May 7, 2025
There, in the winter-time—that is, from Lowestoft to Covehithe—I have seen the beach strewed with wrecks, chiefly of rotten colliers, or ships in the corn trade; but inside ‘Lowestoft Roads,’ to which they were guided by a lighthouse on the cliff, they were supposed to be secure.
How I loved to go to Covehithe and climb its ruins, and dream of the distant past! Here in that eastern point of England it seemed to me there was a good deal of decay. Sometimes, on a fine summer day, we would take a boat and sail from the pretty little town of Southwold, about four miles from Wrentham, to Dunwich, another relic of the past.
Besides those we have mentioned there are about sixty other ruined churches in Norfolk, and in Suffolk many others, including the magnificent ruins of Covehithe, Flixton, Hopton, which was destroyed only forty-four years ago through the burning of its thatched roof, and the Old Minster, South Elmham.
Between Covehithe and Dunwich stood, and still stands, the charming little bathing-place of Southwold. Like them, it has seen better days, and has suffered from the encroachments of the ever-restless and ever-hungry sea.
In 1895 another heavy loss occurred between Southwold and Covehithe and a new cove formed. Easton Bavent has entirely disappeared, and so have the once prosperous villages of Covehithe, Burgh-next-Walton, and Newton-by-Corton, and the same fate seems to be awaiting Pakefield, Southwold, and other coast-lying towns.
Distinguished people born there—Its Puritans and Nonconformists—The country round Covehithe—Southwold—Suffolk dialect—The Great Eastern Railway. In his published Memoirs, the great Metternich observes that if he had never been born he never could have loved or hated.
At the back of us—that is, on the sea—was the village of Covehithe, and when a visitor found his way into the place—an event which happened now and then—our first excursion with him or her—for plenty of donkeys were to be had which ladies could ride—was to Covehithe, known to literary men as the birthplace of John Bale, Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland.
Wangford was ‘Wangfor,’ Covehithe was ‘Cothhigh,’ Southwold was ‘Soul,’ Lowestoft was ‘Lesteff,’ Halesworth was ‘Holser,’ London was ‘Lunun.’ People who lived in the midland counties were spoken of as living in the shires. The ‘o,’ as in ‘bowls,’ it is specially difficult for an East Anglian to pronounce.
Unlike Covehithe, Dunwich has a history. In the reign of Henry II., a MS. in the British Museum tells us, the Earl of Leicester came to attack it. ‘When he came neare and beheld the strength thereof, it was terror and feare unto him to behold it; and so retired both he and his people.’ Dunwich aided King John in his wars with the barons, and thus gained the first charter.
He again returned at the commencement of Elizabeth’s reign, and was made prebend of Canterbury, at which place he died at the age of sixty-three. Covehithe nowadays is not interesting so much as the birthplace of Bale, as on account of its ecclesiastical ruins, which are covered with ivy and venerable in their decay.
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