Visitor information

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Internationally important nature reserve, with a fascinating 20th-century military history

Take a short boat trip to this wild and remote shingle spit, the largest in Europe.

Follow trails through a stunning landscape and a history that will both delight and intrigue.

Discover an internationally important nature reserve littered with debris and unusual, often forbidding, buildings from a sometimes disturbing past.

Please note: charge for ferry over to the nature reserve (including members)

Be safe but maybe not comfortable

Orford Ness is not what you might expect from the National Trust. It's remote and can be bleak and unforgiving. It remains littered with debris and is uncompromising about its past and in protecting its future.

Globally rare and extremely fragile

Orford Ness may contain as much as 15% of the world's reserve of coastal vegetated shingle, and the best preserved shingle ridges in Europe. So fragile is this habitat that even walking on it causes irreparable damage.

Danger! Unexploded bomb

For most of the 20th century the military used the Island for top secret experiments on a vast range of weapons. Intensively used as a bombing and rocket range, dangerous debris, including bombs, still remains.

The essentials

  • Access is only on the NT ferry from Orford Quay on open days.
  • We have a limited number of tickets each day so arrive early.
  • We're sorry but there is no access from Aldeburgh and Slaughden.
  • Steep and slippery steps at ferry and long distances to walk.
  • The 'Pagodas' are only accessible on guided tours - see Events.
  • For your safety and to protect the Ness keep to the visitor trails.

Follow us on Twitter

Why Twitter?

As we only have a limited number of tickets each day we can sell out before the last ferry departure at 2pm. If we are selling fast we will do our best to Tweet to warn you so you can change your plans if needed.