Tag Archives: Activities

Willow Walk

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By Janet Harber

A wander across the Deben flood meadows near Wickham Market – OS Explorer Map 212 Woodbridge and Saxmundham

In October Judy and I investigated a three-and-a-half-mile circular walk from Wickham Market, around the Deben valley. It is one of three interesting local routes to be found on the visitwickhammarket.co.uk website. The two others we had walked previously but most of The Mill Route was new to us. We left our cars in the Wickham Market Crafters Car Park, entrance between two shops on the south side of the Market Place; there are toilets and you can pay by RinGo or cash.

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Swimming the Deben

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Report by Sally Themans

13 Kilometres, Zero Regrets, and a crazy idea becoming a reality


What started as bold ‘pubchat’ at the Maybush over the last couple of years became a reality one Saturday in August when the tides were right to make this long held ambition to ‘Swim The Deben’ became a reality.

Harriet, Sally and Sarah

Three swimmers – all Waldringfield Sailing Club members – Harriet Themans, her mum Sally (myself) and Sarah Collingridge got into the water at 8AM at high tide in Woodbridge Yacht Club, having been chugged upriver for forty minutes on Sarah’s husband Neil’s launch.  We had no idea how long it would take – or even if this was possible. This wasn’t an organised event – just friends ‘having a go’ supported by a kayak, a dinghy and a yacht.

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Shingle Street Walk

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The Peninsula is imbued with a sense of otherworldliness, bounded as it would be by water—the Ore/Alde to the north, the Deben at its southern boundary, and to the east the shingled, windy shores of the North Sea. On leaving the larger towns and villages, you enter a landscape peppered with villages and rural hamlets. Vast fields of sand-friendly crops give way to thick forests, heathlands and marshes. Ever smaller, sharply cornered roads meander through the landscape, lanes disappear into dead-ends, farmsteads, rivers. Its sparsely populated communities holding tight to their identity. In years gone, by each would have been fiercely independent, self-sufficient. A philosophy that I am sure remains today, despite the in-comers and inevitable supermarket vans.

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The Woolverstone Project

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by Julia Jones

I sometimes feel that we don’t do enough for people with disabilities on the Deben. I’m correspondingly glad that we are near neighbours of The Woolverstone Project. I know that many Deben people are already involved with the Project either as volunteers or as fund raisers or financial supporters. Perhaps you, or someone you love, benefits from its activities? This article is for those who may not already know about the project. Perhaps they, like me will feel that they could do more to support its work for people with physical or mental disabilities. Time spent on the water does us good.

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Churches of the Deben – Cycle Routes

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Regular readers of the RDA Journal will remember Gareth Thomas’s impressive project to visit and write about all 40+ of the Deben Churches. To be fair, he had no idea at the beginning of his project that there would be so many…

Gareth’s main purpose was to share his enjoyment with others and to remind people what architectural and historical gems lie tucked away, often in small villages from which the earlier congregations have moved away. But how should people reach them? Some of the walks on this site are designed to link two or three churches together — but what about cycling (or long distance running?) 

We asked keen cyclist Digby Thorogood to devise a route that linked these churches. He divided them slightly differently from Gareth (and skipped a couple) but produced a set of four cycle rides which can be enjoyed separately or as one long day’s pedalling (depending on the availability of Bawdsey ferry).  

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Report from the River Deben Association AGM 29 April 2026

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Words by Julia Jones, Photos by Anna-Marie Sellon

Dan Shemming and Matt Lis from Woodbridge Boatyard, giving a steambending demonstration at the AGM.

This was a particularly relevant and enjoyable AGM. Members had the opportunity to look at the exquisite sketchbooks of the ‘creative native’ Jackie Brinsley from Waldringfield before undertaking the essential association business. We also welcomed our new secretary Phil Skinner and new treasurer / membership secretary, Amanda de Margary. Out going secretary Caroline Peeke was thanked for her committed and effective work and also for being prepared to serve another four-year term on the RDA committee. Our co-chairman Colin Nicholson also entered his second four-year term. His is a demanding and varied role which he undertakes with great diplomacy and thoughtfulness, as well as a quiet determination to achieve results or (to quote his own remarks about the current crisis in the upper Deben area between Ufford and Melton) to persuade the statutory agencies to turn words into effective actions.  He deserves our gratitude. (The Minutes of the meeting and business papers will all be available on the RDA website as usual.)

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The Angelic East Coast Pocket Cruiser

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By Julia Jones

(This article originally appeared in Practical Boat Owner in 2024.)

The 21ft Deben Cherub was designed for competitive class river racing.

It is 100 years since the first Deben Cherub was launched. Julia Jones looks back at the history of this 21ft river racing class:

Cherubs and I first met when I was less than two years old. I don’t consciously remember this, but my mother did. Years later she wrote to remind me that I’d been strapped into my pushchair and parked in the cockpit. The topsides were low enough for me to see out and when the little boat heeled slightly on a windy day, I was able to watch the wave patterns. ‘Over and go, over and go,’ I apparently chanted, allowing my parents to conclude that I was commenting on a wind-over-tide situation.

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The Upper Deben – Understanding the River Upstream

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by Tony Carter

For many people, the River Deben is synonymous with sailing boats, mudflats and the wide estuary between Woodbridge and the sea. Yet long before the river reaches those familiar waters, it begins its journey quietly in the Suffolk countryside above Debenham, winding through fields and villages before making its way downstream. 

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New Deben Walks

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By Jan Harber

OS Explorer 197 Ipswich, Felixstowe & Harwich

In September 2025 sections of the recently-created King Charles III England Coast Path were opened along both banks of the Deben: from Bawdsey to Wilford Bridge and Wilford Bridge to Felixstowe Ferry. See map with the whole route marked in blue. Much of the Coast Path route is along existing rights of way. However, there are three ‘new’ sections which Judy and I decided to investigate this autumn.

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Go to the South Cerney Open!

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By Alice Thorogood

Alice Thorogood has been the parent of three children (Gwen, Hettie and Kemmel Thorogood) in the Waldringfield Cadet Squadron for the last eight years. She and her husband Frank have been fully involved with the practicalities of race management, regatta organisation and committee work as well as ferrying their own children and their dinghies to innumerable events at home and abroad (including world championships as far away as Australia). Cadet sailors must retire at 17. Suddenly it’s all over.

Alice used the lyrics of the Baz Luhrman song ‘everybody’s free (to wear sunscreen)’ to reflect on the friendships she’s made and the experience gained.

Hettie as a junior sailor (left) and at the 2024 World Championships (right).

Ladies and gentlemen of the cadet class of 25:

Go to the South Cerney open.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, camping at the SC open would be it.
The long-term benefits of attending this open have been proved by the existence of enduring friendships beyond the class, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
Than my own meandering cadet experience. I will dispense this advice now.

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