Community Learning - 'Suffolk Scene'

The book, 'Suffolk Scene', was written by Julian Tennyson the great-grandson of Alfred Tennyson, the Victorian poet laureate. It was published in 1939 and singles out the Alde as his favourite river, and the countryside between the rivers Alde and Ore as having "all the qualities that are the essence of Suffolk". He writes about it as follows:

“..... the country around Framlingham had all the qualities which I like best. Near Little Glemham the Alde splits up into two branches, one of which goes through Great Glemham, Sweffling, Rendham, Bruisyard and Badingham, finally petering out (or rising) only a mile or so from the source of our own village (Peasonhall) drain. ; the other (the Ore) through Marlesford, Parham, Framlingham, and on to Saxtead. The strip between these two branches is criss-crossed with little streams, and it is here that the trees are taller and thicker, the slopes more green and more luxuriant than anywhere else in Suffolk. The villages along the valleys are small and sheltered, the country is quiet and deserted; it has a wildness that is rich, protected, almost soothing, quite different in its effect from that of the high plateaus towards the Waveney. In some places you can take a standing jump over the branches of the Alde; in summer I have seen them so dry that as streams they have ceased to exist at all, and in winter I have seen them rise and spread themselves across their valleys; but, no matter what state they are in, the country between them has a distinct and gentle beauty of its own".

"The loveliest part of the whole river is at Iken, where the church and rectory stand lonely on a little wooded hill at the head of the bay that curves sharply back beneath bracken and oak trees and steep, sandy cliffs. There is something very restful about this place, very old and very friendly; there is no church in England which gives you in quite the same way such a feeling of security and changelessness. Behind it are fields, woods and heaths stretching down to Orford, to the right of it are the marshes and the distant sea. A huge expanse of river lies before you when you lean over the graveyard wall; the long, dark pine wood of Blackheath and the bay in the corner where widgeon gather in thousands on winter nights, seem at least two miles off; but wait till low tide and you will see the whole river fall away until it becomes a flat, shining ocean of mud with the channel a thin thread through the middle of it. Whimbrel, curlew, redshank, dunlin, shelduck, mallard, all the birds of the river come up to feed around Iken flats, and their din sets the tame duck quacking raucously in the decoy at the back of the marshes. The noise of birds is all that you will hear at Iken, except when the east wind drives across the marsh and lashes at the thatch of the church. When I was a child I decided that here was the place for me to be buried. I have not altered my mind. Everyone wants to lie in his own country: this is mine. I shall feel safe if I have the scream of the birds and the moan of the wind and the lapping of the water all round me, and the lonely woods and marshes that I know so well. How can anyone say what he will feel when he is dead? What I mean is that I shall feel secure in dying".

A military casuality of the 2nd World War, Julian Tennison is buried at Taukkyan War Cemetery in Burma.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse