The Old Town
This is our earliest image of the High Street taken from an old chart dated 1790. Note the windmill in the background.
The Old Custom House, listed as 1703, has a fascinating raised front door but no-one is able to explain why. The two big ground-floor windows seem out of scale and were a late addition. Adjoining it to the South are Rosemary Cottage and Lavender Cottage, built c1600 and originally one dwelling; a traditional Suffolk timber-framed house. It is one of the oldest buildings in Aldeburgh although the Cross Keys Inn may pre-date it.
Aldeburgh from the Terrace in the days before cars littered the High Street.
Aldeburgh had its own brewery by 1883: The Albert Brewery. This had developed by 1892 into Flintham Hall & Co Ltd brewers, wine and spirit merchants, corn millers and merchants etc with premises in Station Road (Victoria Road). Flintham’s Ales were sold in a number of local hostelries including The Cross Hotel at the bottom of Church Hill.
The brothers Bert and Ernie Aldridge were both butchers c1935. This was Ernie’s shop at Number 157. Imagine the smell on a hot summer’s day – and the flies!