But, in common with Dunwich, and other once flourishing ports on the same coast, Aldeburgh had for its most fatal enemy, the sea.

The gradual encroachments of that irresistible power had in the course of two centuries buried a large portion of the ancient Borough beneath the waves.

Two existing maps of the town, one of about 1590, the other about 1790, show how extensive this devastation had been.

This cause, and others arising from it, the gradual decay of the shipping and fishing industries, had left the town in the main a poor and squalid place, the scene of much smuggling and other lawlessness.

Time and the ocean wave had left only "two parallel and unpaved streets, running between mean and scrambling houses." Nor was there much relief, aesthetic or other, in the adjacent country, which was flat, marshy, and treeless, continually swept by northern and easterly gales.