Suffolk family holidays and breaks

The Suffolk Coast with Kids

• Explore the north of the county, where Suffolk shares The Broads with its northern neighbour Norfolk. Oulton Broad is the southernmost of the Broads and a lively watersports centre with plenty of cafés and pubs.

• Hop south from Oulton Broad to the town of Lowestoft, in the suburbs of which you’ll the theme park Pleasurewood Hills Family Theme Park, with thrill rides and rollercoasters, and an adventure playground.  


• Discover other northern Suffolk attractions, especially the East Anglia Transport Museum at Carlton Colville, with working trams, trolleybuses and a miniature railway, and, north of Lowestoft, Somerlyton Hall & Garden, a Tudor-Jacobean house with lots of activities around its estate and around Fritton Lake just north of it (in Norfolk), including an adventure playground, a maze, a Viking fort, a children’s farmyard, pony treks and a cycle trail.  

• Head for Southwold and its part-shingle, part-sand beach and colourful beach huts, pier with its traditional amusement arcade and wacky handbuilt machines such as the Quantum Tunnelling Telescope, which allows you to see mermaids, shark attacks and even nuclear explosions out at sea. The Pier also has a traditional toy shop and other stores, and family-friendly dining rating from full English breakfasts and fish and chips to cream teas and ice cream. From here walk to Gun Hill to sit astride the 16th-century cannons once used for warning off potential attackers and for local celebrations.  

• Take the ferry from Southwold’s harbour (or drive inland then back out to the coast) to Walberswick – similarly trendy with London media types, as well as being a great place for crabbing  (take bacon, squid or fish bait on string and a bucket to collect the crabs before throwing them back in).  

• Jump along the coast to tiny Dunwich – all that remains of what was once the capital of East Anglia. There’s nothing to see beyond a shored-up shingle beach, fenced-off crumbling cliffs a mile inland of where they were a few centuries ago, weather-worn fishing boats and a family-friendly tea room. But kids are enchanted by tales of what lies out to sea – the remains of one of Europe’s largest medieval ports, home to 3,000 people, eight churches (with bells, according to local legend, that may still be heard at certain tides) and two hospitals. The Dunwich Museum fills you in on all this background.  

• Head for the odd village of Thorpeness, which began as a fishing hamlet but was bought in 1910 by a rich Scot to be transformed into a fantasy holiday village. As well as mock Tudor and Jacobean houses, it has a large shallow boating lake (the Meare) with features inspired by Peter Pan (JM Barrie was a friend of the investor), including a life-size model crocodile on an island. You can also hire canoes to go out on the water, and there’s a vast, uncrowded shingle beach. The House in the Clouds, a former water tower, is both a local tourist attraction and one of Britain’s most unusual holiday lets. 

• Stray into the Minsmere RSPB Reserve, great for families as well as twitchers, with its birdwatching hides, nature trail, beach, visitor centre with wildlife displays, seasonal events and tea room.  

• Proceed to Aldeburgh just to the south, another characterful seaside resort with some of the best fish and chips in the UK and fishermen’s huts selling their catch on the Blue Flag shingle beach. The RNLI lifeboat station is open by appointment, while the little Aldeburgh Museum in the well-preserved Tudor Moot Hall has displays on local shipbuilding, fishing and witches – and also on the Napoleonic-era Martello defence tower just outside town (available to rent from the Landmark Trust). Kids also like the 4m-tall stainless-steel Scallop sculpture on the beach, dedicated to Benjamin Britten, who founded the Aldeburgh Festival.  

• Visit the chocolate-box pretty village of Orford, home to imposing Orford Castle, Henry II’s polygonal tower-keep. Boat trips run from Orford’s harbour around Orford Ness, a spit that was formerly a secret Ministry of Defence military testing site and is now designated a National Nature Reserve.  

• Dive into Rendlesham Forest, Britain’s most famous UFO site – in 1980, unexplained lights were seen here by servicemen at nearby military bases. Capitalising on this history, the Forestry Commission has created a UFO Trail taking in the main locations of the incident, including the clearing where a spacecraft is alleged to have landed. The Rendlesham Forest Centre also has other walking and cycling trails, a cycle park, a picnic area, and  – best of all – the Out of this World play area of large wooden play structures dotted throughout the trees, including a crashed bomber and a UFO landing zone.  


Inland Suffolk with Kids

• See the pleasant marina and boatyard and 18th-century tidal mill of Woodbridge, a market town best known as the nearest town to Sutton Hoo, where fabulous royal treasures were unearthed in the massive ship grave of an Anglo-Saxon warrior king. Though its artefacts were taken to the British Museum in London, the exhibition hall borrows things back for its changing displays, and there’s a full-size reconstruction of the burial chamber and grave goods. The grassy mounds themselves are atmospheric, while the surrounding 99-hectare estate of woods and heather is a great place for wildlife/nature walks with estuary views. Other offerings are themed, living history and family events, behind-the-scenes tours, open-air theatre, and kids’ activities and trails.  

• Find out more about life in Roman Suffolk in the Ipswich Museum in the county town just south of Woodbridge. The venue is also home to galleries of British birds, mammals including foxes, hares, rabbits and seals, plenty of local fossils, rocks, and minerals from the region, and Egyptian deities and mummies. There are plenty of history- and wildlife-based activities, including the likes of making a Saxon torc and fossil identification.

• Head to Framlingham Castle, where Mary Tudor waited to find out if she would become Queen. Though there’s not too much left of the structure, kids love exploring the steeply moated grounds and taking the vertigo-inducing walkway around the top of the curtain wall, peering through the slits used by archers in days gone by. Seasonal events such as Halloween trails are particularly good times to come, but year-round there’s an  activity sheet for kids, a family audio-tour, chess and other giant games to play, and historical displays.  

• Have an excellent day out at Easton Farm Park, especially with younger kids, with pony rides, small animal petting and feeding, an adventure playground, a mini-train, and seasonal activities. The farm also has self-catering cottages to let, some on-site, others in nearby villages, including Thorpeness,  its own campsite and 'cowshed' glamping.  • Explore Ickworth House, a National Trust neoclassical country house (in the East Wing of which lies the family-friendly country-house pile the Ickworth Hotel; see Best Places to Stay take). Whether you stay here or not, the house is a great place to visit with kids, with waymarked walks through park- and woodland, a family cycle route, a play area, and seasonal events and activities.  

• Discover the Tudor village of Lavenham with its half-timbered buildings, including a remarkably preserved Guildhall of Corpus Christi where kids can learn about medieval times. Combine a visit with a trip to the Baylham House Rare Breeds Farm, a working farm and rare breeds centre, with feeding sessions (there are also pigs, pygmy goats, poultry and sheep) and picnic spots by the lake and river.  

• Tour the West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village & Country Park with its items discovered in a village excavated here, within a reconstruction featuring Anglo-Saxon houses, sometimes brought to life by living-history events. There’s also a visitor centre and a play area.  

• Roam around Thetford Forest, home to Brandon Country Park, the High Lodge Forest Centre with walking and cycling trails and play furniture, and picnic and BBQ facilities, and a Go Ape! treetop adventure course.