Dunwich – Ancient city to sleepy Suffolk village

What is fascinating about Dunwich’s infrastructure is not what is there today, but what has gone. For once Dunwich was a thriving city, with an important boat building industry and harbour, home to an impressive fleet of royal ships.

Walking along its main street today such stories may seem incomprehensible but take a look around Dunwich’s little museum and you will get some idea of its fascinating and mysterious past.

Dunwich Museum, St James Street, Dunwich

Dunwich was known in Roman times, although there is some dispute not only as to its name but also to its importance.

However Dunwich was certainly of considerable importance when looking at the introduction of Christianity in Suffolk in around 630-36.

St Felix came to Dunwich at the invitation of Siegebert; and it was here that he set up his see (the area under the authority of a Bishop or Archbishop). According to Bede

At Donmock than was Felix first Bishop
Of Eastangle and taught the chrysten
Faith That is full hye in Heaven I hope.

All Saint's Church, Dunwich 1785

By 1086, just 20 years after the Norman conquest, Dunwich was a thriving town of 3,000 people.

It had six parish churches, with at least two other chapels of ease.

High Treason

Just under a hundred years later in 1173, Robert, Earl of Leicester attempted to land 3000 Flemish troops in Dunwich, in an attempt to depose Henry II and replace him by his son. It seems that the men of Dunwich, loyal subjects of the king, were having none of it and turned the invaders away. Robert was forced to set sail again, finally landing at Orwell (a port, standing east of Harwich, long since lost to the sea).

Perhaps the valiant deeds of the men of Dunwich were appreciated for in 1199, Dunwich was granted a royal charter, and became a Borough, electing a council, as well as magistrates and officers, two bailiffs, a recorder and a coroner.

Its importance in terms of shipbuilding and defence of the realm were paramount and it is recorded that in 1205 there were five Royal Galleons in Dunwich, a similar number to those in the Port of London. When in 1242 the truce between King John and the French king broke down Dunwich was able to muster 80 ships to go the king’s aid.

Certainly this was a period of great prosperity for Dunwich; the town was of much greater importance than Ipswich, which had in the mid 13th century fallen on hard times. Dunwich commanded a superior position at the top of the lowland cliff at the mouth of the Blyth estuary, and as such was able to provide a safe harbour for many ships; its thriving building and repair facilities used by both vessels from as far afield as the Netherlands.

In 1295, Dunwich was enfranchised to send two members to Parliament, elected by the freemen of the Borough. But their loyalty to the Crown was not without cost and in 1304 the king was petitioned for reparations of £1000 to cover the cost of ten ships lost in the king’s service.

The forces of the sea and the mix of sand and gravel led to the downfall of a great city

Dunwich’s position led to its prosperity and later its downfall. For the cliffs were made of sand and gravel and were subject to constant ‘soil creep’ and cliff erosion was and remains a perennial problem, the medieval inhabitants forced to strengthened the sea walls; defences being erected, and then moved as the forces of the sea changed their point of attack.

On the 14th January 1328 disaster struck. A wind of hurricane proportions drove the sea against the spit of land called the Kings Holme, shifting the shingle and effectively blocking the entrance Dunwich harbour. Despite the valiant efforts of its inhabitants the supremacy of the port was lost and Dunwich’s inhabitants worked hard to clear the harbour entrance but this was a battle that could not be won and ships, goods and revenues began to move, along with the estuary mouth to Walberwick, causing much acrimony between the inhabitants of the two towns and a number of deaths.

The sea continued to make incursions, and during the fourteenth century Thomas Gardner reports 400 houses, 2 churches, as well as shops and windmills, succumbed to the tempest. Tales of a lost city under the waves are indeed true, although the ravages of the sea left little in tact. Despite this divers have been exploring the murkywaters off Dunwich for many years and certain items have been found.

Gradually the churches of Dunwich fell into the sea

Meanwhile what churches remained were ravaged by the Parliamentary Visitor, the infamous William Dowsing, who in 1643 was commissioned to supervise the destruction of altars, imagery and “superstitious” inscriptions (i.e. all remnants of Catholic worship). At the church of St Peter, Dowsing ordered the destruction of sixty three cherubims (in the roof), sixty at least of Jesus written in captial letters on the roof, and forty superstitious pictures (in glass), and a cross on the top of the steeple.

By the middle of the 18th century, the town had been all but abandoned and yet it continued to elect its two members of parliament! The freemen of Dunwich had passed on their honour to their ancestors, who now lived all over England. At the end of the 18th century, we read of people travelling to Dunwich on election day, going out in a boat to the point where the town hall used to be, and casting their vote. The freemen also continued to elect magistrates, bailiffs, and so on, and went about their business in a similar manner. By the time of the 1832 Reform Act, which abolished Rotten Boroughs like Dunwich, there were just 8 residents left in the constituency, represented in parliament by two MPs!

Looking through the ruins of Greyfriars towards Southwold