Bawdsey

Introduction

Bawdsey is fighting coastal erosion. Tonnes of granite (from Norway) have been transported here to try and stop the village becoming an island. Bawdsey Manor is notable as the place where early radar research took place early in the Second World War, before moving to Swanage. Some of the military buildings and a reconstructed tower still remain. The building was until the mid-2010s used as an international language school. The manor was originally built by Cuthbert Quilter as a holiday home. Although MP for Ipswich for many years, Quilter apparently only spoke once in the house, on the subject of the purity of ale.

A foot ferry links the village with Felixstowe across the mouth of the Deben. Felixstowe Ferry seems at one time to have been known as Bawdsey Ferry, the Ferry Boat Inn at Felixstowe Ferry is often historically recorded as the Bawdsey Ferry Inn.

Bawdsey was recorded in Domesday as "Baldeseia"; the 1856 OS map shows it as Bowdsey.

The parish includes the hamlet of Shingle Street, located two miles to the north on the beach near Hollesley Bay, where the Lifeboat was located…

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