Over 50 years ago my family had a caravan holiday at Leiston - we learned that the correct pronunciation is Lay-stun. We swam in the sea on the beach just a few hundred yards from Sizewell A nuclear power station. We were really glowing after our day on the beach!
@@nitehawk86you remind me of an important fact (to me anyway!). The civil nuclear police are our only fully armed police force. With jurisdiction up to 5km from a nuclear site (probably more in an emergency of course). Meaning that Sizewell parkrun is the only UK parkrun protected by armed police!
If you can shoehorn in a Charles Tyson Yerkes fact, and picture of the dodgy git, then lots of people will probably get liver damage.* *See Jago Hazard for details.
A couple of other interesting things on the route. At Blythburgh the ghost dog, Black Shuck, was said to have entered the church and left scorch marks on the door, which are still there. The dog was also featured in a song by the Darkness, who of course hailed from Lowestoft. Near RAF Woodbridge is the sister base, RAF Bentwaters, where there's a cold war museum housed in a bunker. It's officially been out of use since the USAF moved out but aircraft were sometimes allowed to use it. I actually landed a C172 there.
Which song ? We have a church where I live and was apparently built somewhere else then moved to our town by a big black cat. On one side of the church it’s eyes are embellished in the stonework. And just for great folklore adding to the story there’s a grave that if you walk round 5 times you get sucked into it 😂
@@Dan23_7 Funnily enough the song is called 'Black Shuck'. The whole mystery is really interesting. East Anglia is home to many legends of big black dogs and big cats etc often shrugged off as old wives' tales, but there have been countless sightings recorded, with Norfolk even holding the UK record for wild big cat sightings. Lends some credibility to many of the historic reports which spawned the folklore to begin with.
@@slambump1978 I used to listen to The Darkness in the early 00’s, I don’t know if I’ve heard that song though, I’m going to check it out now. I love folklore tales and stories. There’s an old road where I live now named “yewlands drive” It used to be called “boggarts lane” and apparently haunted by a headless lady riding a horse 😂 The boggarts lane I can’t dispute but the ghost bit I can. Big cats etc are physical beings and they are out there.
Leiston pronounced 'Lay-stun', and for more railway things there's the old Leiston Works Railway and Long Shop Museum which is a rather good place to visit. And as for the concerns about the new Sizewell C reactor falling into the sea; yes the locals share those concerns. In fact the area N of Sizewell B where Sizewell C is due to be built is believed by local historians to be a dried up river bed. Geotechnical surveys of the area have revealed the ground to be less solid than previously thought, needing to go much deeper to reach the bedrock than with Sizewell B or A. Furthermore, the beaches in Suffolk are known to shift north up the coast over time, so there's a good chance the dunes at Sizewell will disappear in the next century; just take a look at the Kessingland sea wall which was built to stop erosion but is now protected by 200m of dunes.
We're surprisingly knowledgeable about this area. Never been. Soon as Kessingland was mentioned, my mum said "I have [heard of it]. There's a caravan park there". She was right. Soon as I saw the church I thought "That's the one that's about to fall into the sea." I'm liking suddenly being knowledgeable about something for once.
It was always amusing to see people shuffling back from the platform at Ipswich as the flask trains went through. Like it would make a blind bit of difference.
When you consider it took over sixty years for the Thorney bypass to be built (it's not far from me) then building a bridge in 2.5 years really is leaping into action! 😂
Brilliant, as usual. It's not just your acerbic commentary and humour, the information you tell is wonderful and the set-up shots and drone footage are also fantastic. Fab all round.
6:38 there's a little bit of abandoned road to the right of the screen at this time, where the original A12 was replaced with dual carriageway. Some of the original road was made into the northbound entry slip at this point. The abandoned road is set back from the road, with privacy afforded by a hedge, and makes a great venue for losing one's virginity in the back of a Mk 1 Fiat Punto (with squeaky suspension for added comedy value) 🎉😂 (it was a 1.1 "Fire" engine, 55s trim, red, three door, no power steering, rusty wings, broken stereo. 144k miles which is impressive. purple and grey interior. Fitted with slightly wider wheels and tyres from the 1.2 version. N677 CBA. Oh, and the girl's name was Lucy. )
A little off the A12 is Southwold. A very picturesque little town , home of many celebrities, Adnams brewery and a lovely pier with some rather interesting amusements inside. Worth a look.
I'm surprised you didn't pop into Woodbridge town; quite a pleasant little tourist town with a nice riverside walk. Just outside on a road called Sandy Lane (between Woodbridge and Martlesham, which may have been the old horse and cart route before they decided they needed a proper road) is a barn where four young lads from my school (which was off the A1214 in Kesgrave, now a posh hotel) started a fire in October 1989 and caused £250K of damage. Sadly I don't know which farm the barn was on. There was another big fire in a barn along the same road in 2003 which actually made the newspapers but the local paper archives from 1989 aren't online.
As a Felixstowe local (since 1987, before that I was born and bred in Wales) you missed a couple of interesting details. The A12 used to go straight through the runway at Martlesham (now the BT Research Centre). In WW2 it was quite common for the police to stop traffic whilst the various fighter aircraft were departing and arriving to intercept inbound aircraft over the North Sea. Also, Ancient House has carvings denoting the 4 Continents of the world, since America was yet to be discovered and Antarctica was just too cold to be worth noting. Thanks for visiting, hopefully my adopted home town of Felixstowe will appear in another episode?
Felixstowe is my Father's and his family home town, a few are buried in the main cemetery and a few others are still living there, cheers, Garry from DownUnder
no the A12 currently goes through the old runway, the old A12 route would have followed the current A1214 into Ipswich, keeping north of the airfield, and then using the A1071 into the centre of Ipswich, which is the route Jon follows. There was a road between the hangars/officers mess & buildings that links Martlesham to Brightwell, but it wasnt the A12.
Excellent as always - the wide runways at Woodbridge mimic/replicate the massively wide "first-bit-of-dry-land" emergency landing ground in Kent at Manston. As you say, if the radio set was shot up, having a "don't call us, just get on the deck" seems a good arrangement for what Terry Wogan used to describe as the "last great unpleasantness". Great video - as always.
If you're starting in Lowestoft, there's a couple of decent things to visit there. There's the David Silva Honda Collection, which is a bunch of classic Honda motorbikes, and there's the Transport Museum just outside of Lowestoft where you can ride all sorts of old-timey public transport machines.
@@rattlerontheroad A small, narrow-gauge train, yes. Also trams and trolley buses and regular buses. And they drive old cars around too. I definitely recommend it, although you'll have a hard time finding it unless approaching Lowestoft from the south due to lack of signage.
If you're in the area, there are some amazing historic sights, such as the Doom Painting in Wenhaston Church, covered up for around 350 years by whitewash before its accidental discovery, the round tower church at Bramfield, and the lost city of Dunwich (now a tiny village with a museum, a good pub and a chippie)
These new videos of travelling along original road routes are interesting. So much to see along the way such as inns where horse drawn carriage travellers had to stay overnight, etc. Gives an insight as to how slow travel was when reliant on short range horses, and how things might become if everyone is forced into short range battery cars!
Woodbridge and Bentwaters are definitely eerie places to visit. Rendlesham forest surrounds both of them and I’ve camped there. Love the peace and tranquillity of the forest but there’s definitely a sinister overtone to the area. Keep up the good work fella!
which one lol, don't they close it to high sided vehicles when there's just over a breeze and the HGV's have to go through Ipswich and all those bloody roundabouts causing traffic chaos which the bridge was built to alleviate ?
0:32 Couldnt believe this so i decided to measure it in Google Earth. Lowestoft is 169 km (nice) to central london, And 157 km to the nearest point in the netherlands. (106mi, 98 mi)
During that ‘small disagreement’ you mentioned Jon, my grandfather owned a haulage firm and they were requisitioned along with many others to build the airfield. I might have mis-remembered this next bit but I seem to recall my father being at the airfield when it went into lockdown and suddenly from the woods many gliders were hauled out for D-day. He wasn’t allowed to leave the airfield until the next day when the gliders by this time were already in Normandy.
Loads of info and good exhibits at Middle Wallop museum (not in Suffolk, and nothing to do with Vikings). The gliders look made like cabinets - because they were! Repurposed craftsmanship. For many pilots it was their first solo in those gliders. Accident rate was ... not low.
In the ancient times when Britain was covered in wild land, forests etc. (no motorways even!), the main thing that bound people into communities was water (river and sea) travel. Same reason that Kentish language is a bit french. Further back still, that part of the North Sea was land, now called Doggerland (I don't ask why...)
The two worst things about this journey are that it starts in Lowestoft and that it ends in Ipswich. I have lived in both and remember neither fondly. I did work in the Ancient House though, when it was Hatchards bookshop. By the way Leiston is pronounced "Lay-ston", and Gipping has a hard G.
I’ll be honest, I live in Essex so, I’m probably not qualified to mock … but, I found Lowestoft as dull as fu@k 🤔. I found Ipswich okay I guess but it lacked ‘soul’, as it were. Still, could be worse - you could’a lived in St.Osyth, or Frinton😉✌️
Lowestoft is a decent place to visit especially in the summer. What about Felixstowe where the A14 ends and starts which was once the A45. The A12 between Ipswich and Lowestoft is due to be upgraded to dual carriage and with a new bypass to be built to avoid several villages.
Hi, Leiston is pronounced LAYston and on the railway note you missed the Leiston Works Railway. If you had let us know you were coming to Leiston I'd have offered you a cuppa.
@@Mark.Andrew.Pardoe A little story about the Sales engineer for the Dry Cleaners. George was often away for a few days commissioning machines, but one day his wife came in to the works to ask where he was as he hadn't been home for a week. He hadn't told her that he was off around the world on a sales tour.😁
A second point at Sizewell halt is that it is no longer used for sending used fuel to Sellafield, It was only used for sending used fuel from (the now currently being decommissioned) Sizewell A power station, as all the fuel has left site, the line is idle, as Sizewell B's fuel cannot be reprocessed at Sellafield and is kept in dry storage until a way of reprocessing can be found.
Same here first at Hoseasons and then later at a smaller site once walking back from the animal park as a 11yr old I suffered from heatstroke ..... member the little tin shack that was a gift shop.
if you like pebbles and shingle as a beach yes, it was usually our family summer holiday, week in a caravan at Kessingland, I was well into my teens before I realised beaches came with sand, and werent just strewn with rocks, and rocks covered in tar from the fishing boats at that :D
John, with this great British road trips series, you’ve really struck a chord. The roads you’ve covered thus far are all so familiar to me. Keep up the good work 👍
I met and married the current Mrs Wells in Lowestoft and we lived in Wrentham. Wonderful chippy as I remember. The Orwell bridge was built, on the massive scale that it is, in order to permit container shipping traffic up to Ipswich. Felixstowe sort made it an expensive white elephant…but quite beautiful. 😂
On the subject of coastal erosion, go to Walton-on-the-Naze (not too far from Ipswich), stand on the clifftop by the Naze Tower, look out to sea and wonder why they built WW2 pillboxes down on the beach where they get completely covered by the tide twice a day - then realise that when they were built, they were on the clifftop.
Used to drive that route every day, working in Lowestoft and escaping home every evening to Woodbridge. Two fun facts aboit Sizewell: 1. The roads around have been designed on the assumption they will be causeways, 2. When Sizewell A was built, an entire landing stage was formed on the beach with lots of machinery brought in by ship!
Thanks for the insightful information about the runway at Woodbridge, I found that fascinating! Thanks for taking us along with you, safe journeys Jon.
Another interesting fact: if you're feeling rich, you are able to hire the runway for events. If you prefer you can also book a place in motor track days...
I had read that in addition to the wider and longer runways, they also used to have petrol or kerosene fires next to the runways. The east coast was prone to vey thick fog and if an emergency landing was required, the petrol would be lit and it would help dissipate the fog to help the stricken aircraft find their way back
Missed out the former 3ft Southwold Railway which closed in 1929, though there is a group who are active in restoring it. Still a military presence at Woodbridge, tis home to the Army Air Corps and Royal Engineers.
thanks Jon for another brilliant video, nearly choked on my lunch at the ancient ho joke, your wit and sarcasm are spot on as usual , keep up the good work
The small roads and Byways in Suffolk are a real treat, We stayed near Sutton Hoo a couple of years ago and had an excellent time. Kessingland is a real eye opener when you stand on the beach and notice how much higher the North Sea is than the land. This is a great series. Cheers
I grew up in a little village on the A12 just north of Wickham Market. The railway was only half a mile from my house, and sometimes late at night you could hear the nuclear waste trains going down the line.
I've been to those sidings a few years ago when working on a nuclear emergency system. The building in the background at 5:51 is the Emergency Response Centre for Sizewell (which is a mile or so away). It exists in the event of a bloody unlikely disaster such as tidal surge, earthquake etc. I worked in that building installing some computers & shiz, but it also has lots of BIG boys toys and kit you need in the event of infrastructure and building damage at the plant or surrounds.
Great as usual. You could call this channel 'A Trip Down Memory Lane', as it involves both travel and history. Just love the very British way of putting things. Such a welcome break to the unfortunate Americanisation of everything. PS, we are definitely British, both haling from the West Midlands.
It's Gipping, not Jipping, hence Gypswick -> Ipswich. Can just make out the gap in between the the two road decks on the Orwell bridge in the outro, I don't think there's anything connecting the two sides together so it may actually be two separate bridges.
I went to Lowestoft back in 05 with my Mum and Dad and we were out in the car exploring the surrounding area. We drove down this single lane road and at the end of this road was an abandoned farmhouse with it's own water mill and water wheel and a very overgrown small river. The area was very overgrown and I've never seen it since. It's amazing what you can find exploring countryside. All I remember about the location is that it was near Lowestoft.
You might have noticed that Ipswich has one of the most 'challenging' of road networks of anywhere in Britain. Every road marking is worn away, every road sign points to Colchester, Bury St Edmunds and Felixstowe. Unless covered by trees or dirt. Bomb craters still lay everywhere possibly from WW2?
Worth visiting is Sutton Hoo (that's "Hoo") Viking Museum ( _about_ the Vikings, not owned or run by them) with unearthed long-boat and its amazing bling.
If you head back west from the Martlesham Heath runway you found it looks like there's a small additional section of the perpendicular runway that has survived, right next to the A12 roundabout with the Aldi on it.
Being that you are doing Norfolk, you might want to look into the wooden road signs in the badlands, they were all altered to point at the wrong place to confuse the Germans in ww2 and have never been returned to pointing the right way. The ones around Hempnall are particularly annoying for the uninitiated (esp on foot) traveller.
I was taught about land/coastal erosion in school.. 10 years ago. I never paid much attention as i was 12-13 at the time. Now that i think about it.. the example’s i was shown in school have probably gone by now.. land erosion is scary!
I grew up on that housing estate on the old RAF Martlesham Heath, and I'm very familiar with the trip to Lowestoft via Leiston (Lay-stun) where my ancestors are from. Sorry you had to visit Ipswich, John. The Orwell is the tidal estuary part of the river that starts as the Gipping (with a hard G, like the word 'giraffe' doesn't have).
Always laugh out loud at the ‘Small Disagreement’ A fascinating video and really enjoying these little infotainment videos of all the different areas and your presentation is brilliant with a lovely undercurrent of saracasm
Used to have our summer holidays near Saxmundham from the mid 60s to early 80s. Swimming at the beach next to Sizewell was interesting as every so often you would get a spell of warm water come in which had come from the nuclear reactor 😱, so far no after effects 😂
Cheers mate, just had to explain to Mrs. D why I’m apparently having a seizure while watching a video about minor roads in Suffolk. Trying to explain only made things worse. Top content as usual.
I was born in Ipswich. Only spent the first year of my life there, so don't remember anything, but have been back to Ipswich a couple of times. It's not such a bad place. Really. If you go along the south bank of the Orwell you come to Pin Mill which is very picturesque. The Butt and Oyster is a great pub.
5:24 Almost! It's actually "lay-ston" believe it or not! I grew up in Southwold, very cool to see you talking about the surrounding areas! Great video!
Your dedication to referring to it as “The Small Disagreement of 1939-1945” is one of my favorite things about this channel. Never change, Jon. 😂
Reminds me of The Tim Traveler always referring to the first disagreement (1914-18) as “that time someone shot an Austrian.”
I love the use of litotes - you don't encounter them very often now.
This was actually a joke Churchill would use during the war.
Yup. Deliberate under emphasis for comic effect. It's a branch of sarcasm.
@@brianartillery Understatement is the ultimate form of British sarcasm.
Thank you for acknowledging the absurd juxtaposition of nuclear power stations and eroding coastlines.
Yeah, what could possibly go wrong? 🤔😂
I give you Bacton gas terminal...
loving my mum getting mentioned in guide books as ever
My mother would object to being called ancient.
Hello Jon, how the devil are you, have you had a good week?
If you liked this video there’s a button specifically for that.
@@oliverstemp9132cheers sherlock
Better for getting out of Ipswich I'd imagine!
I love the way you sound so sarcastic all the time, the frequent moments of actual sarcasm almost slip by unnoticed.
Keep it up.
It's the British way 😅
@@MummaBear Absolutely!
“The small disagreement from 1939 to 1945”
@@real_swiftydragon "As always the local council leaped into action and following a 2½ year discussion, work began in September 2022."
I must admit my favourite TH-cam channels are those with completely boring content made extremely interesting. You are the best at it.
Over 50 years ago my family had a caravan holiday at Leiston - we learned that the correct pronunciation is Lay-stun. We swam in the sea on the beach just a few hundred yards from Sizewell A nuclear power station. We were really glowing after our day on the beach!
“Gratuitous Railway Content”
That would be a great name for a second channel.
5:24 - Auto Shenanigans - covering the railway bits Geoff Marshall and Jago Hazard don't get to
Geoff: "The least used nuclear power... station."
You are the failing alarm to my nuclear meltdown
@@nitehawk86you remind me of an important fact (to me anyway!). The civil nuclear police are our only fully armed police force. With jurisdiction up to 5km from a nuclear site (probably more in an emergency of course). Meaning that Sizewell parkrun is the only UK parkrun protected by armed police!
If you can shoehorn in a Charles Tyson Yerkes fact, and picture of the dodgy git, then lots of people will probably get liver damage.*
*See Jago Hazard for details.
A couple of other interesting things on the route. At Blythburgh the ghost dog, Black Shuck, was said to have entered the church and left scorch marks on the door, which are still there. The dog was also featured in a song by the Darkness, who of course hailed from Lowestoft.
Near RAF Woodbridge is the sister base, RAF Bentwaters, where there's a cold war museum housed in a bunker. It's officially been out of use since the USAF moved out but aircraft were sometimes allowed to use it. I actually landed a C172 there.
Which song ?
We have a church where I live and was apparently built somewhere else then moved to our town by a big black cat. On one side of the church it’s eyes are embellished in the stonework.
And just for great folklore adding to the story there’s a grave that if you walk round 5 times you get sucked into it 😂
@@Dan23_7 Funnily enough the song is called 'Black Shuck'.
The whole mystery is really interesting. East Anglia is home to many legends of big black dogs and big cats etc often shrugged off as old wives' tales, but there have been countless sightings recorded, with Norfolk even holding the UK record for wild big cat sightings. Lends some credibility to many of the historic reports which spawned the folklore to begin with.
Black Shuck you say? Turn Back I say.
@@slambump1978 I used to listen to The Darkness in the early 00’s, I don’t know if I’ve heard that song though, I’m going to check it out now.
I love folklore tales and stories. There’s an old road where I live now named “yewlands drive”
It used to be called “boggarts lane” and apparently haunted by a headless lady riding a horse 😂
The boggarts lane I can’t dispute but the ghost bit I can. Big cats etc are physical beings and they are out there.
The black dog of Bungay moved on to others 😂
Leiston pronounced 'Lay-stun', and for more railway things there's the old Leiston Works Railway and Long Shop Museum which is a rather good place to visit. And as for the concerns about the new Sizewell C reactor falling into the sea; yes the locals share those concerns. In fact the area N of Sizewell B where Sizewell C is due to be built is believed by local historians to be a dried up river bed. Geotechnical surveys of the area have revealed the ground to be less solid than previously thought, needing to go much deeper to reach the bedrock than with Sizewell B or A. Furthermore, the beaches in Suffolk are known to shift north up the coast over time, so there's a good chance the dunes at Sizewell will disappear in the next century; just take a look at the Kessingland sea wall which was built to stop erosion but is now protected by 200m of dunes.
Hello fellow Jon, I used to live in Saxmundham.
You summed it up perfectly, by mentioning its existence and little else.
What's its museum like?
Thanks Jon, your videos are the highlight of my Sundays!
Thanks a lot buddy, see ya Sunday! :D
We're surprisingly knowledgeable about this area. Never been. Soon as Kessingland was mentioned, my mum said "I have [heard of it]. There's a caravan park there". She was right. Soon as I saw the church I thought "That's the one that's about to fall into the sea." I'm liking suddenly being knowledgeable about something for once.
It was always amusing to see people shuffling back from the platform at Ipswich as the flask trains went through. Like it would make a blind bit of difference.
Hi Jon. Glad you refrained from being sarcastic this week. 😂
When you consider it took over sixty years for the Thorney bypass to be built (it's not far from me) then building a bridge in 2.5 years really is leaping into action! 😂
There's a combination of words I've never heard put together before this channel: "Exciting Great British Road Journey."
Brilliant, as usual. It's not just your acerbic commentary and humour, the information you tell is wonderful and the set-up shots and drone footage are also fantastic. Fab all round.
Excellently put. 👏
6:38 there's a little bit of abandoned road to the right of the screen at this time, where the original A12 was replaced with dual carriageway. Some of the original road was made into the northbound entry slip at this point.
The abandoned road is set back from the road, with privacy afforded by a hedge, and makes a great venue for losing one's virginity in the back of a Mk 1 Fiat Punto (with squeaky suspension for added comedy value) 🎉😂
(it was a 1.1 "Fire" engine, 55s trim, red, three door, no power steering, rusty wings, broken stereo. 144k miles which is impressive. purple and grey interior. Fitted with slightly wider wheels and tyres from the 1.2 version. N677 CBA.
Oh, and the girl's name was Lucy. )
A little off the A12 is Southwold. A very picturesque little town , home of many celebrities, Adnams brewery and a lovely pier with some rather interesting amusements inside. Worth a look.
its 5miles off the A12, if he stopped everywhere that was 5miles off the road, poor guy would never get to his destination.
Southwold is one of the nicest bits about Suffolk! @@awavey
I'm surprised you didn't pop into Woodbridge town; quite a pleasant little tourist town with a nice riverside walk. Just outside on a road called Sandy Lane (between Woodbridge and Martlesham, which may have been the old horse and cart route before they decided they needed a proper road) is a barn where four young lads from my school (which was off the A1214 in Kesgrave, now a posh hotel) started a fire in October 1989 and caused £250K of damage. Sadly I don't know which farm the barn was on. There was another big fire in a barn along the same road in 2003 which actually made the newspapers but the local paper archives from 1989 aren't online.
1:37 he's pissed down his left leg again
Well spotted
I've driven the Magnox Scammell FLM718C that used to transport the nuclear waste to that rail yard!
As a Felixstowe local (since 1987, before that I was born and bred in Wales) you missed a couple of interesting details.
The A12 used to go straight through the runway at Martlesham (now the BT Research Centre). In WW2 it was quite common for the police to stop traffic whilst the various fighter aircraft were departing and arriving to intercept inbound aircraft over the North Sea. Also, Ancient House has carvings denoting the 4 Continents of the world, since America was yet to be discovered and Antarctica was just too cold to be worth noting.
Thanks for visiting, hopefully my adopted home town of Felixstowe will appear in another episode?
Felixstowe is my Father's and his family home town, a few are buried in the main cemetery and a few others are still living there, cheers, Garry from DownUnder
As an Ipswich local (since 1974) I can assure you that America is represented on the Ancient House, along with Europe, Asia and Africa.
no the A12 currently goes through the old runway, the old A12 route would have followed the current A1214 into Ipswich, keeping north of the airfield, and then using the A1071 into the centre of Ipswich, which is the route Jon follows. There was a road between the hangars/officers mess & buildings that links Martlesham to Brightwell, but it wasnt the A12.
Excellent as always - the wide runways at Woodbridge mimic/replicate the massively wide "first-bit-of-dry-land" emergency landing ground in Kent at Manston. As you say, if the radio set was shot up, having a "don't call us, just get on the deck" seems a good arrangement for what Terry Wogan used to describe as the "last great unpleasantness". Great video - as always.
If you're starting in Lowestoft, there's a couple of decent things to visit there. There's the David Silva Honda Collection, which is a bunch of classic Honda motorbikes, and there's the Transport Museum just outside of Lowestoft where you can ride all sorts of old-timey public transport machines.
Like a train?!
@@rattlerontheroad A small, narrow-gauge train, yes. Also trams and trolley buses and regular buses. And they drive old cars around too.
I definitely recommend it, although you'll have a hard time finding it unless approaching Lowestoft from the south due to lack of signage.
The Maritime Museum is great to visit as well!@@Skorpychan
Thanks for the stop over at RAF Woodbridge! My Dad used to fly F4s out of there in the 70s.
If you're in the area, there are some amazing historic sights, such as the Doom Painting in Wenhaston Church, covered up for around 350 years by whitewash before its accidental discovery, the round tower church at Bramfield, and the lost city of Dunwich (now a tiny village with a museum, a good pub and a chippie)
These new videos of travelling along original road routes are interesting. So much to see along the way such as inns where horse drawn carriage travellers had to stay overnight, etc.
Gives an insight as to how slow travel was when reliant on short range horses, and how things might become if everyone is forced into short range battery cars!
Woodbridge and Bentwaters are definitely eerie places to visit. Rendlesham forest surrounds both of them and I’ve camped there. Love the peace and tranquillity of the forest but there’s definitely a sinister overtone to the area. Keep up the good work fella!
Yay! My house in the background of a video on TH-cam 😅 More importantly I'm glad you didn't get caught up in the recent Orwell Bridge closure!
which one lol, don't they close it to high sided vehicles when there's just over a breeze and the HGV's have to go through Ipswich and all those bloody roundabouts causing traffic chaos which the bridge was built to alleviate ?
@@mistywolf312 the attempted suicide unfortunately
Ah my home town of Ipswich! It’s nice to see it get some publicity! Great video 👍🏻
Blue army
0:32 Couldnt believe this so i decided to measure it in Google Earth.
Lowestoft is 169 km (nice) to central london,
And 157 km to the nearest point in the netherlands.
(106mi, 98 mi)
I fact checked myself just in case ;)
During that ‘small disagreement’ you mentioned Jon, my grandfather owned a haulage firm and they were requisitioned along with many others to build the airfield. I might have mis-remembered this next bit but I seem to recall my father being at the airfield when it went into lockdown and suddenly from the woods many gliders were hauled out for D-day. He wasn’t allowed to leave the airfield until the next day when the gliders by this time were already in Normandy.
Loads of info and good exhibits at Middle Wallop museum (not in Suffolk, and nothing to do with Vikings). The gliders look made like cabinets - because they were! Repurposed craftsmanship. For many pilots it was their first solo in those gliders. Accident rate was ... not low.
That was really interesting. Thanks for the tour and cheers from Missouri, USA
Eastern most point in the UK and closer to the Netherlands than London. Only you would come up with that factoid! Love it.
In the ancient times when Britain was covered in wild land, forests etc. (no motorways even!), the main thing that bound people into communities was water (river and sea) travel. Same reason that Kentish language is a bit french. Further back still, that part of the North Sea was land, now called Doggerland (I don't ask why...)
The two worst things about this journey are that it starts in Lowestoft and that it ends in Ipswich. I have lived in both and remember neither fondly. I did work in the Ancient House though, when it was Hatchards bookshop. By the way Leiston is pronounced "Lay-ston", and Gipping has a hard G.
I’ll be honest, I live in Essex so, I’m probably not qualified to mock … but, I found Lowestoft as dull as fu@k 🤔. I found Ipswich okay I guess but it lacked ‘soul’, as it were. Still, could be worse - you could’a lived in St.Osyth, or Frinton😉✌️
The Eastern Coach Works range of bus and coach bodies was made in Lowestoft.
Lowestoft is a decent place to visit especially in the summer. What about Felixstowe where the A14 ends and starts which was once the A45. The A12 between Ipswich and Lowestoft is due to be upgraded to dual carriage and with a new bypass to be built to avoid several villages.
1:23 That's a power stance and a half
The half is thankfully well hidden
@@jeremywilliams5107Tripod Jon. I've heard he has an OnlyFans channel too.
Glad you are also having a look at airfields along the way - great!
Hi, Leiston is pronounced LAYston and on the railway note you missed the Leiston Works Railway. If you had let us know you were coming to Leiston I'd have offered you a cuppa.
Whato all,
You didn't mention Garrett traction engines were built there.
And not forgetting Garretts then made dry cleaning machines after the bottom fell out of the steam powered market.
@@Mark.Andrew.Pardoe A little story about the Sales engineer for the Dry Cleaners. George was often away for a few days commissioning machines, but one day his wife came in to the works to ask where he was as he hadn't been home for a week. He hadn't told her that he was off around the world on a sales tour.😁
@@richardwest217 That must have been an interesting marriage. Cheers
Lowestoft is ace. You should have visited Orford Ness. Some fantastic military history there.
I love your description of how councils spend more time talking than they often spend actually doing.
A second point at Sizewell halt is that it is no longer used for sending used fuel to Sellafield, It was only used for sending used fuel from (the now currently being decommissioned) Sizewell A power station, as all the fuel has left site, the line is idle, as Sizewell B's fuel cannot be reprocessed at Sellafield and is kept in dry storage until a way of reprocessing can be found.
I told my family we were taking a trip to the Far East. They were disappointed to find out it was Ness Point 😂
Lovely beach at Kessingland. Used to have a few holidays there in the 1970s.
Same here first at Hoseasons and then later at a smaller site once walking back from the animal park as a 11yr old I suffered from heatstroke ..... member the little tin shack that was a gift shop.
Also have had a holiday at Kessingland!
if you like pebbles and shingle as a beach yes, it was usually our family summer holiday, week in a caravan at Kessingland, I was well into my teens before I realised beaches came with sand, and werent just strewn with rocks, and rocks covered in tar from the fishing boats at that :D
6:30 don't forget the Fukushima Daiichi Accident in japan back in 2011
I can't even tell you how much my partner who loves this channel is that you went ANYWHERE near Southwold, where he hails from.
love the jazz interludes / filler john, nice
Love a good old mum joke 😂😂
John, with this great British road trips series, you’ve really struck a chord. The roads you’ve covered thus far are all so familiar to me. Keep up the good work 👍
8.00 The name is pronounced Martle-sham Heath.😀
I met and married the current Mrs Wells in Lowestoft and we lived in Wrentham. Wonderful chippy as I remember.
The Orwell bridge was built, on the massive scale that it is, in order to permit container shipping traffic up to Ipswich. Felixstowe sort made it an expensive white elephant…but quite beautiful. 😂
On the subject of coastal erosion, go to Walton-on-the-Naze (not too far from Ipswich), stand on the clifftop by the Naze Tower, look out to sea and wonder why they built WW2 pillboxes down on the beach where they get completely covered by the tide twice a day - then realise that when they were built, they were on the clifftop.
3:05 was anyone else worried this wasn't about driving when the layby was pointed out?
Looks like a place for dog walking
In this new series, this is my favourite episode so far!
I'm quite convinced that you gave every pronunciation of Leiston except the correct one on purpose (it's LAYston btw as in "I lay down")
Used to drive that route every day, working in Lowestoft and escaping home every evening to Woodbridge. Two fun facts aboit Sizewell: 1. The roads around have been designed on the assumption they will be causeways, 2. When Sizewell A was built, an entire landing stage was formed on the beach with lots of machinery brought in by ship!
Nice Harvester in Lowestoft
Thanks for the insightful information about the runway at Woodbridge, I found that fascinating! Thanks for taking us along with you, safe journeys Jon.
Another interesting fact: if you're feeling rich, you are able to hire the runway for events. If you prefer you can also book a place in motor track days...
I had read that in addition to the wider and longer runways, they also used to have petrol or kerosene fires next to the runways. The east coast was prone to vey thick fog and if an emergency landing was required, the petrol would be lit and it would help dissipate the fog to help the stricken aircraft find their way back
@@grahamrowntree5573 I've been told the very same thing
@@grahamrowntree5573 that would be FIDO-fog investigation and dispersal operations.basically pipes of burning petrol along side the runway
Missed out the former 3ft Southwold Railway which closed in 1929, though there is a group who are active in restoring it.
Still a military presence at Woodbridge, tis home to the Army Air Corps and Royal Engineers.
Loved the video Jon. What an eclectic mix of topics. Really appreciate the loco shenanigans and the aero shenanigans and especially the humour. 😂
thanks Jon for another brilliant video, nearly choked on my lunch at the ancient ho joke, your wit and sarcasm are spot on as usual , keep up the good work
I stayed in a B&B in North Parade when I did my Post Office counter training in 1975 or '76; walked across the Jubilee Bridge each day.
Thanks Jon! Another excellent video, as always! Can't wait to show the chaps at work tomorrow
The small roads and Byways in Suffolk are a real treat, We stayed near Sutton Hoo a couple of years ago and had an excellent time. Kessingland is a real eye opener when you stand on the beach and notice how much higher the North Sea is than the land. This is a great series. Cheers
I abseiled off Orwell Bridge doing inspection work a few years ago. It's hollow inside the beams and you can walk up and down inside.
I grew up in a little village on the A12 just north of Wickham Market. The railway was only half a mile from my house, and sometimes late at night you could hear the nuclear waste trains going down the line.
can’t believe the Yoxford ´Yoxman’ didn’t get a mention
I've been to those sidings a few years ago when working on a nuclear emergency system. The building in the background at 5:51 is the Emergency Response Centre for Sizewell (which is a mile or so away). It exists in the event of a bloody unlikely disaster such as tidal surge, earthquake etc. I worked in that building installing some computers & shiz, but it also has lots of BIG boys toys and kit you need in the event of infrastructure and building damage at the plant or surrounds.
Great as usual. You could call this channel 'A Trip Down Memory Lane', as it involves both travel and history.
Just love the very British way of putting things. Such a welcome break to the unfortunate Americanisation of everything.
PS, we are definitely British, both haling from the West Midlands.
Ah, the Awful Bridge. How we love it. You actually make it look quite picturesque so kudos for that :D
Really enjoying the variety of interesting stuff that's included in this series while keeping it road based.
It's Gipping, not Jipping, hence Gypswick -> Ipswich. Can just make out the gap in between the the two road decks on the Orwell bridge in the outro, I don't think there's anything connecting the two sides together so it may actually be two separate bridges.
'Gippeswyck' = 'Gippa's Town'.
technically it is yes
As always, a brilliant insight into the distressing state of the country. Avidly waiting for the next episode of Bradshaws.
This is the best video I've ever seen about anything
I went to Lowestoft back in 05 with my Mum and Dad and we were out in the car exploring the surrounding area. We drove down this single lane road and at the end of this road was an abandoned farmhouse with it's own water mill and water wheel and a very overgrown small river. The area was very overgrown and I've never seen it since. It's amazing what you can find exploring countryside. All I remember about the location is that it was near Lowestoft.
5:30 - it's pronounced "Lay-Stun" ( I think!)
You might have noticed that Ipswich has one of the most 'challenging' of road networks of anywhere in Britain. Every road marking is worn away, every road sign points to Colchester, Bury St Edmunds and Felixstowe. Unless covered by trees or dirt. Bomb craters still lay everywhere possibly from WW2?
Worth visiting is Sutton Hoo (that's "Hoo") Viking Museum ( _about_ the Vikings, not owned or run by them) with unearthed long-boat and its amazing bling.
If you head back west from the Martlesham Heath runway you found it looks like there's a small additional section of the perpendicular runway that has survived, right next to the A12 roundabout with the Aldi on it.
Being that you are doing Norfolk, you might want to look into the wooden road signs in the badlands, they were all altered to point at the wrong place to confuse the Germans in ww2 and have never been returned to pointing the right way. The ones around Hempnall are particularly annoying for the uninitiated (esp on foot) traveller.
I was taught about land/coastal erosion in school.. 10 years ago. I never paid much attention as i was 12-13 at the time. Now that i think about it.. the example’s i was shown in school have probably gone by now.. land erosion is scary!
I grew up on that housing estate on the old RAF Martlesham Heath, and I'm very familiar with the trip to Lowestoft via Leiston (Lay-stun) where my ancestors are from. Sorry you had to visit Ipswich, John.
The Orwell is the tidal estuary part of the river that starts as the Gipping (with a hard G, like the word 'giraffe' doesn't have).
Absolutely loving this series
Nice one mate, thanks for watching!
Auto shenanigans has become an important part of my Sundays, very interesting and enjoyable, thank you, 👍👊.
Another fantastic and informative video Jon.
Always laugh out loud at the ‘Small Disagreement’ A fascinating video and really enjoying these little infotainment videos of all the different areas and your presentation is brilliant with a lovely undercurrent of saracasm
Used to have our summer holidays near Saxmundham from the mid 60s to early 80s. Swimming at the beach next to Sizewell was interesting as every so often you would get a spell of warm water come in which had come from the nuclear reactor 😱, so far no after effects 😂
Cheers mate, just had to explain to Mrs. D why I’m apparently having a seizure while watching a video about minor roads in Suffolk. Trying to explain only made things worse. Top content as usual.
Are you calling my mother a ho? I bet she would have found that hilarious. Great video though and a window into a place in the UK ive never been.
I'm booking my vacation now, that beach is awesome! Thanks for your special brand of infotainment. See you next week.
There is a nice little beach just up the road from where you filmed at Orwell Bridge by Stoke Sailing club.
The part visualising land erosion was a bit of a “big oaft!” moment. Probably one of the better examples I’ve seen on the topic.
Agreed. Shocked me to be honest!
I was born in Ipswich. Only spent the first year of my life there, so don't remember anything, but have been back to Ipswich a couple of times. It's not such a bad place. Really. If you go along the south bank of the Orwell you come to Pin Mill which is very picturesque. The Butt and Oyster is a great pub.
I love this series. keep it up
9:39 Orwell truck stop gone but never forgotten.😢
5:24 Almost! It's actually "lay-ston" believe it or not! I grew up in Southwold, very cool to see you talking about the surrounding areas! Great video!
Interesting to see the "tidal flow" road set up in Lowestoft