Dunwich tide times

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived.

Model-derived from a global ocean grid. Useful indication; expect about ±45 minutes on average vs. a local harmonic gauge, individual stations vary widely. See /methodology for per-region detail. Not for navigation.

Conditions as of 05:00 local time. Refreshes daily.

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived. · Not for navigation.

The angler tradition for major/minor fishing windows: major ≈3-hour windows around moon transit and opposition; minor ≈2-hour windows around moonrise and moonset. Times are Europe/London local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Next spring tide on Thu 21 May (range 2.2m / 7.1ft). Next neap on Tue 19 May.

Spring tides cluster around new and full moons (biggest swings). Neap tides land on quarter moons (smallest swings). See the spring tide and neap tide glossary entries for the why.

Dunwich is a hamlet of fewer than 200 people on the Suffolk coast between Southwold and Aldeburgh. It was, in the 12th century, one of the most significant ports in England — larger than Norwich, with a population estimated above 3,000, a minster church, two hospitals, three friaries, and a thriving North Sea trade network. The coast has taken almost all of it. Storms in 1286 and 1287 silted the harbour mouth and began the structural erosion of the sea wall and town cliffs. By the 17th century the central town had gone; by 1919 the last medieval church, All Saints, had collapsed onto the beach. The graveyard slides into the sea in chunks after every significant winter storm. The erosion mechanism is simple and relentless: the cliffs are soft London Clay and Crag, without the chalk hardness of the north Kent coast. Wave action at high tide on storm surges undercuts the cliff base; the overhang collapses. The long-term retreat rate on this section of coast is 0.5 to 2 metres per year, accelerating in high storm-energy years. The North Sea has no natural barrier here — the offshore shelf is shallow and the fetch from the northeast is unobstructed from Denmark. The tidal range at Dunwich is mesotidal, similar to Southwold: mean spring range approximately 2.3 m above Chart Datum. The tidal exposure here is beach rather than harbour — a long, straight stretch of shingle and sand between the car park south of the village and Dunwich Heath to the south. At low water, the beach face exposes firm sand extending 80 to 100 metres from the shingle berm. Dunwich Heath is a National Trust property: 240 hectares of heathland, wooded cliffs, and sea-views over the eroding shore. The underwater town is the main draw. Divers and snorkellers reach it from the beach — the remains of the medieval churches and harbour walls lie in 8 to 12 metres of water on the sandy seabed roughly 400 metres offshore. The Dunwich Museum on the village street displays an extraordinary scale model of the medieval port alongside excavated artefacts. The archaeological record of what has been lost is more complete than what remains on land. For anglers, the beach between Dunwich and Minsmere is one of the better remote bass marks on the Suffolk coast. There is no pier and no harbour; the long, undeveloped beach fishes clean. Bass follow the flood tide along the shingle runnels from April through October; the marks south of the village, toward the Minsmere outfall, are consistently productive in the first two hours of the incoming tide at dusk. Minsmere RSPB Reserve is 2 km south, one of the most significant wetland bird reserves in the UK. The reserve manages water levels with sluice gates that respond to tidal patterns in the nearby sea — the freshwater reeds and saline-fringe habitats were specifically engineered to sit just above tidal influence. Avocets, bitterns, marsh harriers, and (in season) rare waders make Minsmere a justification for a full day on this coast. Tide predictions here come from Open-Meteo Marine (±45 min / ±0.2–0.3 m above Chart Datum), cross-referenced with EA Flood Monitoring and the NTSLF Lowestoft gauge. For navigational purposes, consult the UK Hydrographic Office and Admiralty Tide Tables (NP201, Volume 1).