The village of Orford was not always the small village on the Suffolk coast that it is today. In the twelfth century it was a thriving port, with ships sailing across the North Sea taking wool from the grazing lands of East Anglia to mainland Europe. So important was the port that between 1165 and 1173, Henry II built a castle at Orford to protect this trade from the powerful barons at nearby Framlingham Castle. It was not the barons or the changes in the production of wool that caused the decline of the port. What King Henry did not see coming was the threat advancing along the coast from the north.
Just south of the fishing port of Aldeburgh, the River Alde flowed to within 100 metres of the sea, but then it was turned southwards by a long tongue of sand and shingle blocking its course to a point just to the south of Orford. This great tongue of shingle, called a spit, continued to grow southward and within 100 years had made it impossible for trading ships to reach Orford.
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