Sutton Hoo is £18 and the Tide Mill £6, both within reach of the town. Verified August 2026 prices for nine days out here and along the coast, plus one that is shut.

Woodbridge has two attractions of genuine national standing within a couple of miles of each other, and one of them costs £6. Everything else worth doing is strung out along the coast road north, between half an hour and an hour away.

Every price and opening time below was checked against the venue’s own website in August 2026. Where something is closed or on reduced hours, we say so rather than quietly leaving it out.

Adult admission prices around Woodbridge and the Suffolk coast, August 2026 Bar chart of adult admission prices paying on the day. Framlingham Castle is £20.00, Sutton Hoo £19.80 with Gift Aid, Orford Castle £14.00, Easton Farm Park £13.96, Woodbridge Tide Mill £6.00 and Aldeburgh Museum £4.50. Snape Maltings, Thorpeness Meare and the beaches carry no admission charge. Two castles at £20 and £14, and a working tide mill at £6 Adult admission paying on the day, checked against each venue's own site in August 2026. National Trust and English Heritage members go free at their own sites. Framlingham Castle£20.00 Sutton Hoo£19.80 Orford Castle£14.00 Easton Farm Park£13.96 Woodbridge Tide Mill£6.00 Aldeburgh Museum£4.50 No admission charge Snape Maltings shops, galleries and reed walks · the Deben river wall at Woodbridge · Aldeburgh beach and the Scallop Booking ahead is 15% cheaper at both English Heritage castles: Framlingham drops to £17.00 and Orford to £11.90. Sutton Hoo is £18.00 without Gift Aid. Closed: the Suffolk Punch Trust at Hollesley is not open to the public for general visits.
Under-5s go free everywhere on this list. Children are £9.00 at Sutton Hoo, £10.00 at Framlingham, £7.00 at Orford, £3.00 at the Tide Mill and £1.00 at Aldeburgh Museum.

Sutton Hoo

Tranmer House, Sutton Hoo, Woodbridge, IP12 3DJ. National Trust. 01394 389700.

  • Adult £19.80 with Gift Aid, £18.00 without. Child (5 to 17) £9.90 or £9.00. Family (2 adults and up to 3 children) £49.50 or £45.00.
  • National Trust members free.
  • Current hours: Tranmer House and the Exhibition Hall 10.30am to 4.30pm, café 10am to 4.30pm, estate walks 10am to 5pm.
  • Main car park with blue badge spaces at the front, about 30 yards from the entrance, plus an overflow car park at peak times. Motorhomes use the overflow; coaches book ahead.

The Anglo-Saxon royal burial ground above the Deben, where the ship burial and the helmet came out of Mound 1 in 1939. The estate walks and the viewing tower are worth as much of your day as the exhibition. If you are coming from the town, it is on the far side of the river from Woodbridge itself, so allow for the drive round by Melton.

The Trust flags a temporary reduction in VAT running from 25 June to 1 September 2026, so the price at the till may be lower than the advertised rate.

Woodbridge Tide Mill

On the quay at Woodbridge, beside the marina.

  • Adult (16 and over) £6.00, concession £5.00, accompanied child (5 to 15) £3.00, family (up to 2 adults and 2 children) £15.00.
  • Open every day from April to November, 11am to 5pm. Book online for a weekend visit.

One of only a handful of tide mills in the world still producing flour on a regular basis, and among the first built in the country: there has been a mill working this site for over 850 years. Most days you can watch the oak water wheel turning, which is the point of coming. The displays use computer imagery to show how grain and flour move through the building, and there are children’s activities. Check the wheel-turning times before you set off, because they follow the tide rather than the clock.

At £6 for an adult and £15 for a family this is the best value on the coast, and it is a short walk from the station along the quay.

Framlingham Castle

Church Street, Framlingham, IP13 9BP. English Heritage. Twelve miles north of Woodbridge.

  • Open daily, 10am to 5pm, last entry 4.30pm.
  • On the day: adult £20.00 with donation, £18.10 without. Child (5 to 17) £10.00 or £9.00. Concession £18.00 or £16.30. Family (2 adults, up to 3 children) £50.00 or £45.40; one adult and up to 3 children £30.00 or £27.20.
  • Book in advance and it is 15% less: adult £17.00 with donation, £15.38 without; child £8.50 or £7.65; family £42.50 or £38.59.
  • Free for English Heritage members.

The curtain wall and its towers survive largely intact and you walk the whole circuit of them, which is the thing to do here. Mary Tudor was at Framlingham when she was proclaimed queen in 1553. English Heritage is also passing on the VAT cut from 20% to 5% until 1 September, applied at checkout.

Orford Castle

Orford, on the road out to the Ness. English Heritage.

  • Open daily, 10am to 5pm.
  • On the day: adult £14.00 with donation, £12.70 without. Child £7.00 or £6.30. Concession £13.00 or £11.80. Family (2 adults, up to 3 children) £35.00 or £31.80.
  • In advance: adult £11.90 with donation, £10.79 without.
  • Free for English Heritage members.

Henry II’s polygonal keep, built in the 1160s and standing almost to its full height, with a view from the roof over Orford Ness and the shingle. The village below it has two good reasons to stay put afterwards, the quay and the smokehouse.

Easton Farm Park

Pound Corner, Easton, IP13 0EQ. 01728 746475. Eight miles from Woodbridge.

  • £13.96 per person aged 2 and over. No separate adult and child rate.
  • Open daily, 10am to 5pm.

A working farm run as a family attraction, and the default answer for anyone with small children in this part of Suffolk. One flat price covers everyone over two, so a family of four is £55.84.

Aldeburgh Museum, in the Moot Hall

Moot Hall, Aldeburgh, IP15 5DS.

  • Adult £4.50, child 5 to 15 £1.00, under 5 free, family (2 adults and 2 children) £10.00.
  • Admission gives you unlimited visits for 12 months, though not to special events.
  • Open every day from 28 March to 1 November, 1pm to 4pm, except Carnival Monday, when it is closed. This year Carnival Monday is 17 August. From November to March it opens weekends only, plus extra days in the school holidays.

The Moot Hall is the timber-framed sixteenth-century building on the seafront, which is worth the £4.50 on its own. Note the hours carefully: three hours a day is the whole of it, so this is an afternoon stop rather than a morning one.

Aldeburgh’s other draws cost nothing. The beach, the fishermen’s huts selling the morning’s catch, and Maggi Hambling’s Scallop up the shingle towards Thorpeness.

Snape Maltings

Snape, IP17 1SP. Box office 01728 687110. Run by the charity Britten Pears Arts.

The concert hall Benjamin Britten built in a derelict Victorian maltings, and the home of the Aldeburgh Festival. Around it has grown a cluster of independent shops, galleries, restaurants and cafés: the MALT café, an antiques centre, an award-winning deli, an emporium of early musical instruments, and craft and art shops. There are walks out through the reeds along the Alde, river cruises from the quay, and sculpture on the site by Ryan Gander and Barbara Hepworth.

Concerts and events are ticketed through the box office. Wandering the site, the shops and the reed walks is what most people come for, and you can hear rehearsal music through the open windows while you do it.

Thorpeness Meare

The Meare, Thorpeness, IP16 4NW.

  • Open every day, 8.30am to 5pm. Last boat hire at 4.30pm. The season opened on Saturday 21 March 2026.
  • Dinghies, larger rowing boats, punts, sailing boats, canoes and kayaks.

A shallow artificial boating lake with islands and inlets named after Peter Pan, dug when Thorpeness was built as a holiday village before the First World War. Shallow water is the reason it works so well with children. The Meare does not publish its hire prices online, so ask at the boathouse.

Closed: the Suffolk Punch Trust

Sink Farm, St David’s Lane, Hollesley, IP12 3JR.

The trust is currently closed to the public for general visits. It still appears as an open attraction on several listings sites and in guidebooks. If you were planning a day around the working horses at Hollesley, ring 01394 411327 or email before you drive out there.

Up the coast: Southwold Pier

Southwold, at the north end of our patch, up the A12 past Darsham.

Summer holiday hours, running 18 July to 31 August: the Under the Pier Show 9am to 7pm, the Arcade 10am to 7pm, the Boardwalk Restaurant 11am to 6pm, the Pier Fish and Chip Shop 11am to 7pm, the Ice Cream Parlour 10am to 7pm, the Donut Parlour 11am to 6pm, the Clockhouse 9am to 6pm, and the two shops, Seaweed & Salt and Treasure Chest, 10am to 6pm.

Tim Hunkin’s Under the Pier Show, a shed full of homemade coin-operated machines, is the reason to go and is unlike anything else on the east coast. One warning from the pier’s own notices: high winds close the Under the Pier Show, the Clockhouse and Seaweed & Salt at short notice, so check on a rough day.

One we could not check

RSPB Minsmere, between Dunwich and Sizewell, is the other major attraction on this coast and one of the best-known nature reserves in the country. We have not listed its prices or hours because the RSPB’s website blocks automated checks and we could not verify anything from the source this week. Ring or check the RSPB site directly before you go.

Getting around

Most of this list needs a car, and the A12 north of Wickham Market is a construction corridor at the moment: see roadworks and travel for the current closures and the 30mph stretches. Woodbridge, Melton, Wickham Market, Saxmundham and Darsham are all on the East Suffolk Line, covered on our page on trains to London, and Aldeburgh, Orford and Thorpeness have no station at all.

More local information: house prices and planning and the Local Plan.