Despite sometimes alluded to as The Esplanade or The Parade, the main path that runs, with its continuations, for some 2 miles at the very edge of Aldeburgh's beach is modestly called Crag Path. Dame Millicent Fawcett, the campaigner for women's suffrage born in Aldeburgh in 1847, says it was not always called that. In her autobiographical 'What I Remember' she wrote, "I remember walking along the crag path at Aldeburgh - we always resisted with vehemence any Cockney attempt to call it The Esplanade, The Parade, or any such name."

With few exceptions the buildings overlooking the sea have a certain lack of distinction but the sum of these undistinguished parts add up to a fascinating 'indefinable air of comfort' which does much to give the whole town its peculiar charm.

Two hotels claim the sea frontage at the northern end of Aldeburgh, The Wentworth Hotel and the White Lion Hotel which is where it is thought Wilkie Collins stayed in the summer of 1861 when writing his novel 'No Name' set partly in Aldeburgh. In it Collins described the experience of being on Crag Path thus, "Viewed from the low level on which these villas stand, the sea, in certain conditions of atmosphere, appears to be higher than the land...."

One distinguished building on the sea front is the Moot Hall. Its age is uncertain but it is shown on a map of 1594 -preserved in the Moot Hall- as being several streets back from the front, testimony to the relentless encroachment of the North Sea. Benjamin Britten set the first scene of his famous opera Peter Grimes in the Moot Hall. Today the building houses a museum.

At the War Memorial and the boating lake, Crabbe Street runs inland though parallel to the shore. Places of interest overlooking this part of the beach are the Jubilee Hall, used by Jill Freud & Company producing professional theatre in Southwold since 1984 and in Aldeburgh since 1995.

Also of interest are the brick towers known as the Look-outs, formerly used by the rival Companies of Beachmen, in pre-lifeboat days, for the purpose of watching for vessels in distress. Today's lifeboat is expensively housed in a contraversial building on the shingle - whereas it was previously stationed on the beach in constant readiness.

Near the North Look-out on Crag Path is Strafford House, for long the residence of Edward Clodd, writer and friend of George Meredith, Edward Fitzgerald, Samuel Butler, Thomas Hardy and other contemporary authors. In this house such luminaries partook in Whitsun gatherings, no doubt for literary indulgences, as well as going sailing on the Alde in Clodd's yacht. Clodd was a keen follower of Charles Darwin and an ardent evolutionist.

In 1843 it was recorded that Aldeburgh had around 200 licensed fishing boats with large quantities of sole, sprats, lobster and herring being caught. Today it is still possible to buy fish freshly caught from the few fishermen's huts on the beach.

At the southern end of Crag Path, the Parade, is The Brudenell Hotel with its stylish AA Two Rosette restaurant specialising, as expected, in fish and seafood. There is a real cosmopolitan atmosphere here during the summer months when al fresco dining is available on the hotel's sea-facing terrace.

George Crabbe, the English poet, was born at Aldeburgh in Suffolk on the 24th of December 1754.

The sea has swept away the small cottage that was George Crabbe's birthplace, but one may still visit Slaughden Quay, some half-mile from the town, where his father worked and George was at a later date to work with him.

Sadly, you can no longer have a drink at the Three Mariners as that too has been consumed by the sea.

Even The Martello Tower, built to protect our shores from Napoleonic invasion, is itself under severe threat from the North Sea, its seaward outer fortifications already being lost.