Why didn’t people stay here?

Britain wasn’t permanently settled until about 11,500 years ago. Before that there were periods of up to 100,000 years when no humans lived in Britain at all – nobody yet knows quite why.

However, climate change must have been as much an issue for early Southwold as it is today (although people weren’t to blame). Ice Ages came and went, interspersed with warmer periods. During these Ice Ages, the East Anglian ground was probably permanently frozen hard, rather than covered with vast, thick sheets of ice. Nonetheless, when people found it hard to survive they retreated south overland.

In about 6,500 BC, increasing temperatures melted the ice caps and the sea level rose. The land bridge to Europe disappeared and Britain became an island. Those who had settled here were trapped and there was no going back.