Skip to content
Accessibility
  • Text Size:
  • Normal
  • Large
  • Larger
  • Screen Colours:
  • Normal
  • Black & Yellow
Alde Valley Suffolk Family History Group
  • Home
    About us and what we do ... Data Privacy (GDPR) Early Days of the Group Leiston Grammar School photos Leiston house plaques Leiston WWI/WW2 & POW memorials Our Church Records Suffolk Flag Legals
  • maps+
    Alde Valley medieval Churches Alde Valley potted history Old Suffolk maps Ordnance Survey 25" maps Suffolk Parishes: MI's and PR's Spare maps
  • events
    Book for our next Zoom talk Our upcoming Monthly Talks 2020 2019 2018 2015-17
  • blog
    Audio blogs
  • HelpCentre
  • Index
    Acquired recently How to use our Index Where to find things in the Help Centre Index AV abbreviations Index Structure
  • downloads
    Aldringham Fens Heritage Project appeal for information
  • links
    Photos Deposit: identifying images Family etc. History Groups in Suffolk Family History Federation History of UK Registration/Censuses, and Social/FH data National Archives Photos-collection Deposit Rolls of Honour of the Alde Valley (WWI and WW2) Significant dates for family records Suffolk Local History Council (SLHC) Suffolk Record Office Suffolk Roll of Honour, 1914-18 Support our Friends & Advertisers! Zeppelin L48, Theberton 1917 more useful non-local information
  • personages
    The Garretts
  • archive
    Audio (members only) Videos & podcasts Virtual Visit Open Day 2019 Fisherfolk and Lifeboat Men Open Day 2018 Open Day 2017 Open Day 2016 In Flanders Fields Leiston Abbey 2015 Open Day March 2015 Open Day January 2014 Open Day October 2013 Open Day January 2013 Aldringham Baptist Chapel Survey Open Day 2012 Flanders 2011 St Mary's Benhall MI's 2010
  • Membership
    online application
  • ContactUs
    Members' Interests Research Request Form
  • ⚖

Home » events » The History of Minsmere

The History of Minsmere
Fri
22
Jan
2016
14
30
Fri
22
Jan
2016
16
00

The History of Minsmere

Over eighty people turned up at Kelsale village hall – the first time we have used that venue – on the afternoon of 22nd January to hear Kelsale resident Charles Cuthbert’s personal perspective on the history of Minsmere.

IMG00010 20160122 1425

 

Charles’s parents used to have the Post Office at Theberton, and Charles told us of his carefree childhood, running wild in the countryside, and showed us photos of the beach at Sizewell where he used to go swimming with the school, before the power station was built.

He was only thirteen years old when he first started volunteering at what is now one of the UK’s premier nature reserves. Minsmere has been a part of his life ever since.

He told of how the marshes had been inhabited by monks in the Middle Ages – the ruins of their chapel are still to be seen – until they moved to Leiston Abbey to escape the risk of flooding.

William Smith, “the father of English geology”, first drained the marshes in the early 1800s, after which they were used for agriculture until World War II, when the existing grazing marshes were flooded as an anti-invasion measure.  Charles showed us photographs of the barbed-wire beach defences, with a radar mast in the background.  The concrete tank traps are there to this day: one still bears the inscription “Wimpeys Defence Line 1940”. 

The flooding attracted wetland birds. Avocets (the emblem of the RSPB) which symbolise the bird protection movement in the UK more than any other species, were found nesting at Minsmere and on Havergate Island in the River Alde in the 1940s and the subsequent increase in numbers represents one of the most successful conservation and protection projects.

The bird reserve was later purchased from the Ogilvie family.  Bert Axell was appointed its first full-time warden in 1959. He developed the “scrapes”, huge shallow lagoons dotted with islands to attract the birds – a land-management system that is now copied worldwide.

In the freezing winter of 1962/3 Bert rescued bitterns and fed them fish to keep them alive; and Charles told us how in September 1965 thousands of unusual migrant birds were blown off course and literally fell out of the sky from exhaustion – a phenomenon known as The Great Fall of 1965.

Charles illustrated his talk with many photographs, some archival black and white, and some lovely colourful ones of birds.  The meeting closed with a number of questions.

This was the first time we have met in the afternoon: the high attendance suggests it was a popular move.

 

Maggie Strutt

 

Previous: Reflections on Flanders Field
Next: Stories from Saxmundham
The Details:
Kelsale Village Hall, Bridge Street/Low Road corner, Kelsale, Saxmundham, Suffolk, IP17 2PB View Map >>

Copyright © 2021, Alde Valley Suffolk Family History Group

[ f] Follow us on Facebook here! ⚓︎⚓︎⚓︎ ♬♬♬ Please report website issues to the Webmaster here

By using our website you are consenting to our use of cookies. If you would like to know how we use our cookies or how you can block cookies in your browser please click on our cookie policy.