Aldeburgh

Aldeburgh is a distinctive Suffolk coastal town with a long shingle beach, colourful fishermen's huts on the shore, and a strong cultural identity shaped by Benjamin Britten, who lived here and founded the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948. The festival, now centred at nearby Snape Maltings, is one of the finest classical music festivals in the world. The town is small and walkable — a long high street parallel to the beach with independent shops, galleries, good pubs, and Aldeburgh Fish & Chips, which has a justified reputation as one of the best chippies in England (the queue is part of the experience). The Scallop sculpture on the beach, Maggi Hambling's tribute to Britten, is dramatic and divisive — locals either love it or hate it. Snape Maltings, a few miles inland, is a beautifully converted Victorian maltings complex with the concert hall, galleries, shops, and cafés. The marshes around Snape and the Alde estuary are hauntingly beautiful — flat, empty, and full of birds. The whole landscape has a quality of light and silence that Britten captured in his music. Aldeburgh is a place that gets under your skin.