Despite the popularity of the Suffolk coast the coastline line north of Thorpeness still has a feeling of remoteness. For many hundreds of years Thorpeness was a port but the eroding coastline changed all that the river entrance silted.

Below is an extract from Smuggling in the British Isles: a History by Richard Platt For more detail visit his website www.smuggling.co.uk

From the account of the activities of the Hadleigh gang, it's clear that the coast near Leiston (Thorpeness, Sizewell) was the focal point for smuggling in Suffolk: many of the traditional anecdotes and yarns feature the village, and even in verifiable accounts of smuggling incidents some of the action takes place in the area. Leiston's principal advantage was the proximity of Sizewell now a low coastline, but two centuries ago, the landscape looked quite different. The sea was flanked by spectacular cliffs, and the most convenient route through them was via Sizewell Gap, just a few miles north of Thorpeness. From the cliffs, goods would be carried inland along an ancient trackway crossing Westleton heath-lands, or hidden in Minsmere levels (now RSPB Minsmere)

The document that details the runs by the Hadleigh gang makes frequent references to Sizewell. This entry is typical:
June 15th — 80 horses mostly with tea landed out of Cobby's cutter at Old Chapel about 2 miles from Sizewell: at the same time 34 horses all loaded with Tea landed out of the May Flower cutter and 20 next morning out of the same at Sizewell.

(There is a suggestion that Cobby, who owned one of the boats involved, was one of the smugglers who broke into the Poole customs house, and was ultimately hanged and his body displayed on a gibbet at Selsey Bill.)
Of the countless local tales about the free-trade, one yarn in particular is extremely vivid, and gives an unusually detailed glimpse of how the local smugglers operated. Furthermore, the details of the story have been verified by several writers.

The story is set in the summer of 1778, when a group of smugglers brought in a cargo of gin. They landed the 300 tubs undetected, shipped it a couple of miles inland in six carts, and stored the contraband in a barn at Leiston Common Farm, under the watchful eye of Crocky Fellowes, a trustworthy accomplice.

All would have been well had the cache not been found by another local of Leiston, the club-footed 'Clumpy' Bowles. Either Bowles did not have the same sympathy for the local smugglers, or he smelled a reward, because he reported the find to the local revenue man, Read. Realizing that he'd need some support if he was going to separate the spirits from their owners, Read tried to summon a pair of dragoons who were billeted at the White Horse in the village. The dragoons were drunk, so Read looked elsewhere for reinforcements. He sent for two dragoons from the inn at Eastbridge, but the landlady there plied the two men with spirits before they left, so their assistance was equally useless.

Read eventually got together some help, and the party was met at the locked door of the barn by Crocky Fellowes, and two chums — Sam Newson and Quids Thornton. The three men kept Read and his party occupied while 20 of the smugglers moved the tubs through an adjoining hay-loft and onto waiting carts. When the work was complete, the three men guarding the barn unlocked the door, admitted the revenue officers...then locked them inside. The carts trundled off to Coldfair Green, a mile southwest of Leiston.
Here the smugglers had another hiding-place waiting. A dung-heap concealed a trap-door, which led to a sizeable underground vault. The tubs were bundled in and the dung moved back into position; the finishing touch was to eliminate all the cart tracks and footprints by driving a herd of sheep over them. This subterfuge seems to have been sufficient to outwit the revenue men, but the tale is not yet over.

Some time later, the gang returned to recover their cache. They shovelled the manure away from the door and opened the vault. Despite warnings from Crocky Fellowes, They didn't wait for the foul air from the dung to disperse before descending, and three of the gang were overcome by the fumes; two of them died as a result.
News of the deaths travelled fast, and eventually reached the ears of a revenue officer at Saxmundham. He guessed that the smugglers would move the tubs to Aldringham, probably to the Parrot and Punchbowl. He was right. He rode to the pub with two (sober) dragoons, and caught the smugglers red-handed.

However, while their gin was in hiding, the gang had not been idle. They soon found out who had informed on them, and at nine one night two of them arrived at the crippled breech-maker's house on the Yoxford Road close to Leiston High Street. They dragged Clumpy from the house and took him on horseback to somewhere a little less public. There they gagged him with the bung from a beer barrel and savagely whipped him. They threw the apparently lifeless body over a hedge, but Clumpy was clearly a man of some stamina. A farm labourer found him, and took him to the Green Man at Tunstall, where a servant recognized the bung with which Clumpy's assailants had gagged him; she had lent it to a man called Tom Tippenham. Clumpy's testimony, and this corroborative evidence earned Tippenham and his accomplice to a 2-year stretch in Ipswich prison.

Click here for information on the History of smuggling in Suffolk.