Thorpeness

Back in May we had a damp family holiday in the spooky neat village of Thorpeness. I say spooky, as we hardly saw a soul in or around the tidy manicured gardens or the clean streets of the Suffolk seaside town. If I had done some researched before our holiday, I would have known that this village is and always has been very much a seasonal place.

At the beginning of the last century, a Scottish Barrister called Glencairne Stuart Ogilvie purchased a chunk of coastal Suffolk. Most of this land was used for farming but he kept the then small fishing hamlet, Thorpeness, and developed it into a private fantasy holiday village as a destination for upper middle class families.

Mock Jacobean and Tudor architecture dictate the style of the village making it appear austere and affluent. Even the water tower known as The House in the Clouds was clad in wood to try and make it less of an eyesore and has now become the landmark of the village.

The large man-made lake known as the Meare sits in the middle of the village and is only knee deep - enough for boating but safe for men overboard. The lake was created with numerous islands including Crocodile Island, Peter Pan's Island and The Fort - a reference to J. M Barrie's children's story Peter Pan.

The house we stayed in had a beautiful rickety boat-house with fabulous views of the water and it was strange to think we were only five minutes from the sea and yet the main pull to Thorpeness was the Meare. This is still the case and in August, Thorpeness plays host to the hugely popular regatta and fireworks display on 23rd and 24th.