Orford Ness
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Orford Ness is a cuspate foreland shingle spit on the
Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...
coast in Great Britain, linked to the mainland at Aldeburgh and stretching along the coast to Orford and down to North Weir Point, opposite Shingle Street. It is divided from the mainland by the
River Alde The River Alde and River Ore form a river system in Suffolk, England passing by Snape, Suffolk, Snape and Aldeburgh. The River Alde and River Ore meet northwest of Blaxhall. From there downriver the combined river is known as the River Alde pa ...
, and was formed by longshore drift along the coast. The material of the spit comes from places further north, such as Dunwich. Near the middle point of its length, at the foreland point or 'Ness', once stood Orfordness Lighthouse, demolished in summer 2020 owing to the encroaching sea. In the name of the lighthouse (and the radio transmitting station – see below), 'Orfordness' is written as one word.


Description

Orford Ness is an internationally important site for nature conservation. It contains a significant portion of the European reserve of vegetated shingle habitat, which is internationally scarce, highly fragile, and very easily damaged. Together with Havergate Island the site is a designated National Nature Reserve and forms part of: the Alde-Ore Estuary
Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...
(SSSI); the Alde, Ore & Butley Estuaries and the Orfordness-Shingle Street
Special Area of Conservation A special area of conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and ap ...
(SAC); the Alde-Ore Estuary
Special Protection Area A special protection area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and cer ...
(SPA); the Alde-Ore Estuary
Ramsar Site A Ramsar site is a wetland site designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention,8 ha (O) *** Permanent 8 ha (P) *** Seasonal Intermittent < 8 ha(Ts) **
Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is one of 46 areas of countryside in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Since 2023, the areas in England an ...
(AONB); and the Suffolk Heritage Coast. It is also listed as of national importance in the
Geological Conservation Review The Geological Conservation Review (GCR) is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee. It is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological ...
(GC), as a grade 1 site in the
Nature Conservation Review ''A Nature Conservation Review'' is a two-volume work by Derek Ratcliffe, published by Cambridge University Press in 1977. It set out to identify the most important places for nature conservation in Great Britain. It is often known by the initi ...
. (NCR) and qualifies for the DEFRA Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) scheme.


History

The peninsula was formerly administered by the
Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...
, which conducted secret military tests during both world wars and the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
. The site was selected as the location for the
Orfordness Beacon The Orfordness Rotating Wireless Beacon, known simply as the Orfordness Beacon or sometimes the Black Beacon, was an early radio navigation system introduced by the United Kingdom in July 1929. It allowed the angle to the station to be measured ...
, one of the earliest experiments in long-range
radio navigation Radio navigation or radionavigation is the application of radio waves to geolocalization, determine a position of an object on the Earth, either the vessel or an obstruction. Like radiolocation, it is a type of Radiodetermination-satellite servi ...
. The Beacon was set up in 1929 and used in the pre-war era. In the 1930s Orford Ness was the site of the first purpose-built experiments on the defence system that would later be known as radar. Having proved the technology on Orford Ness, Robert Watson-Watt and his team moved to nearby Bawdsey Manor and developed the
Chain Home Chain Home, or CH for short, was the codename for the ring of coastal early warning radar stations built by the Royal Air Force (RAF) before and during the Second World War to detect and track aircraft. Initially known as RDF, and given the off ...
radar system in time for its vital role in the Battle of Britain. The Atomic Weapons Research Establishment had a base on the site, used for environmental testing, i.e. testing conducted to determine the functional performance of a component or system under conditions that simulate the real environment in which the component or system is expected to operate. Many of the buildings from this time remain clearly visible from the
quay A wharf ( or wharfs), quay ( , also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more Berth (mo ...
at Orford, including the distinctive 'pagodas'. In the late 1960s an experimental Anglo-American military over-the-horizon radar known as Cobra Mist was built on the peninsula. It closed in 1973, and in the late 1970s and early 1980s the site and building were re-used for the Orfordness transmitting station. This powerful medium-wave radio station – originally owned and run by the
Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United ...
, then the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
and, after privatisation in the 1990s, a series of private companies – was best known for transmitting the
BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...
in English around the clock to continental Europe on 648 kHz from September 1982 until March 2011. The following year, the site became disused until
Radio Caroline Radio Caroline is a British radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly and Allan Crawford, initially to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopol ...
began broadcasting from it in December 2017. Orford Ness is now owned by the
National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...
and is open to the public under the name Orford Ness National Nature Reserve, though access is strictly controlled to protect the fragile habitats and due to a residual danger to the public from the site's former use by the military. Access is available only by the National Trust ferry from Orford Quay on designated open days. Urban explorers have also visited the site. Rachel Woodward writes:
It is a place of strange contrasts. For the National Trust, its 'elemental nature' contrasts with the 'inherent dangers' of this place, a 'hostile and potentially dangerous site'. Military structures – the Bomb Ballistics Building, the Black Beacon, the 'pagodas' used for explosive design – have been converted into viewing spots. This is not a celebratory site, however; there is ambivalence and doubt here, with regard to what is being physically and ideologically conserved.
Owing to its military history, its stark appearance and the fact that it was closed to the public for many decades, several apocryphal stories have circulated about Orford Ness. The best-known is the suggestion that
Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
troops attempted to invade England and actually disembarked at the tip of the peninsula near Shingle Street, before being repelled with a wall of fire. Official sources denied that any such attempted invasion took place, an assertion confirmed by classified documents released in 1993. More recently, the flashes of the lighthouse were implicated in the Rendlesham Forest UFO sightings of late December 1980. In 2013, Trinity House announced that the lighthouse was to be decommissioned as an aid to navigation and marked on UKHO charts as disused. It was demolished in summer 2020. In September 2023, the National Trust employed contractor Bam (working with
Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...
and
University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
's Bartlett School for Sustainable Construction) to survey the site - in particular, the AWRE Labs 4 and 5, or pagodas - using drones and a dog-like robot named Spot, manufactured by US firm Boston Dynamics. Concrete decay meant the buildings could not be safely surveyed by human surveyors. National Trust archaeologist Angus Wainwright said the team wanted "to see if it's possible to do a really detailed building survey with no human operator in the building." File:Ferry,_Orford_Ness_-_geograph.org.uk_-_535535.jpg, View from the Orford Ness dock towards Orford Quay. File:The_Radar_Tower,_Orfordness_-_geograph.org.uk_-_287811.jpg, The 'Black Beacon' radio navigation tower and the lighthouse File:Orfordness_transmitting_station.jpg, Aerial view of the Orfordness transmitting station File:Orfordness Lighthouse - geograph.org.uk - 2600984.jpg, The lighthouse File:Orford_Ness_pagoda_exterior.jpg, Exterior of two 'pagodas' File:Orford_Ness_pagoda_interior.jpg, Interior of a 'pagoda'


Geography

Orford Ness is Europe's largest vegetated shingle spit. It is approximately long,Annex 06: Orfordness in: and the site covers a total area of approximately . Forty percent of this (890 acres) is shingle, 25 percent (556 acres) tidal rivers, mud flats, sand flats, and lagoons, eighteen percent (400 acres) grassland, and fifteen percent (330 acres) salt marsh. The spit formed almost entirely of flint deposited by waves through the process of long-shore drift. The main influence on its formation has been storm waves throwing shingle over the top of the beach crest, where it is protected from ordinary wave action. Over time, this process leads to the formation of stable ridges of fine particles, and swails of coarser shingle. The size and shape of the spit fluctuate over time (see map). Estimated growth rates range from 64 m per year in 1962 to 1967, to 183 m per year in 1804 to 1812. Between 1812 and 1821, the total length fluctuated by . As a result of the dynamically changing nature of the spit, the true age of its formation is unknown. However, before about 1200, Orford is thought to have been a port facing the open sea.


See also

* Wartime events at Shingle Street, Suffolk, are explored in more detail in two books by James Hayward. * Orford Castle Norman keep overlooking Orfordness and Orford Island * Night Invisible Varnish Orfordness, a type of British military aircraft paint * Havergate Island
RSPB The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a Charitable_organization#United_Kingdom, charitable organisation registered in Charity Commission for England and Wales, England and Wales and in Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, ...
Reserve * Seaplane Experimental Station, another research station at
Felixstowe Felixstowe ( ) is a port town and civil parish in the East Suffolk District, East Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England. The estimated population in 2017 was 24,521. The Port of Felixstowe is the largest Containerization, containe ...
* Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment, yet another nearby experimental station at Martlesham Heath Airfield


Notes


References


External links


LIFE+ project; Alde-Ore future for wildlifeOrford Ness National Nature Reserve information at the National Trust
– Lady Florence, Orford Quay, Suffolk
''My Orford'' by Charlie Underwood
– An interesting insight into village life in Orford
English Heritage survey report on AWRE Orford Ness
includes history from First World War onwards (2009). {{Coord, 52, 04, 53, N, 01, 33, 31, E, type:landmark, display=title Landforms of Suffolk National Trust properties in Suffolk Nature Conservation Review sites Tourist attractions in Suffolk Spits of England Orford, Suffolk Beaches of Suffolk