The Best Things to Do in Southwold: A Complete Guide

A complete local's guide to Southwold

Southwold has a way of getting under your skin. One long weekend with the pier in your eyeline, the salt air on your face and a salty walk along Sole Bay, and you understand why people come back every year for decades. As a local team that lives and works on this stretch of the Suffolk Coast, this is the guide we'd hand a friend visiting for the first time.

Walk the pier (and stay for sunset)

Start where every Southwold trip should start: Southwold Pier. It's not a fairground pier, it's something better, a 623-foot timber walk over the North Sea with quirky arcade machines, the wonderfully absurd Under the Pier Show, and one of the best vantage points on the Suffolk Coast. Time it for sunset and you'll see exactly why this stretch of coast inspired so many painters.

The High Street

A short stroll from the pier, wander up the High Street, independent bookshops, the legendary Two Magpies bakery, ceramics studios, gift shops you'll actually want to spend an hour in, and a proper old-fashioned hardware store that somehow still survives.

The beach huts and Sole Bay

The candy-coloured Southwold beach huts are arguably the most photographed in England, and rightly so. Take the long walk from the pier south along the promenade, past the sailors' reading room, all the way to Gun Hill with its row of 18th-century cannons facing out to sea. The beach itself is wide, clean and gently shelving, perfect for families, dog walkers (south of the pier in summer) and very stout people who like a winter swim.

Climb Southwold Lighthouse

Hidden in plain sight in the middle of town, Southwold Lighthouse is a working light that you can climb. The view from the top, pier, sea, the church tower of St Edmund, the marshes towards Walberswick, is one of the best in Suffolk. Tours run several days a week in season.

Walberswick by ferry

Don't leave Southwold without doing the rowed Walberswick ferry across the River Blyth. It's tiny, beautiful, and lands you in arguably the most charming village on the Suffolk Coast. Crab off the bridge, grab fish and chips by the green, and walk back along the dunes if the tide is right.

Where to eat

For a proper sit-down dinner, Sutherland House and The Crown are the classics. For lunch, The Lord Nelson does the best food in town with a view of the sea, Two Magpies is the destination bakery, and The Harbour Inn down by Blackshore harbour is unbeatable on a sunny day. Don't miss a proper plate of fish and chips from the Sole Bay Fish Company.

A few hidden corners

• St Edmund's Church, the tallest church on the Suffolk Coast, with extraordinary 15th-century pews.
• Southwold Museum, small, free, and surprisingly excellent on the town's smuggling history.
• The Common, the wild green space behind the town, full of dog walkers and skylarks.

Plan your stay in Southwold

Southwold rewards a proper long weekend over a flying day trip, there's enough to do for three or four days without ever needing the car. Most of our Southwold holiday cottages sit within a five-minute walk of the High Street, the beach or both, and they're styled the way we'd want our own homes to look. Beautifully made beds, hotel-grade linen, and a folder of personal recommendations from people who actually live here.

Browse our Southwold properties and book direct for the best rates and the warmest welcome.