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Waldringfield is a small village situated on the west bank of the River Deben estuary. It is four miles from the historic market town of Woodbridge and eight miles from Ipswich. The village is surrounded by farmland and lies within the Suffolk Coasts and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

The Deben Estuary is beautiful, its banks relatively unspoilt by development.
The village architecture reflects a mixture of the old and new developing from its agricultural past, through a period of industry to the current tourist destination of today.

The settlement grew up on a bend in the river, four miles from the Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo, and one of only a handful of places between Woodbridge and Felixstowe where a shingle beach provides easy access between water and land.

The medieval Parish Church of All Saints, with its Tudor red-brick tower, stands on higher ground to the south of the village. It is said that a church has existed on this site for 700 years and there is some evidence that it was an Anglo-Saxon burial site in pre-Christian times. The Maybush Inn, originally a farmhouse, dates from the middle of the 14th century. The property was probably licensed around 1745.

The hamlet of Waldringfield Heath lies about half a mile away from the centre of the village and has around a dozen properties and a thriving Baptist Chapel.

The village’s history is industrial. From about 1860 to 1895, coprolite was being dug out from pits in the fields, washed and sifted on the beach and shipped by barge to be processed in factories in Ipswich, as part of the early fertiliser industry. Towards the end of the 19th century Mason’s cement-making industry sprang up, using mud from the river mixed with chalk brought in by barge from the Medway. Served by one hundred barges a month and employing twelve ‘bottleneck’ kilns, the industry survived until 1907. The kilns were demolished in 1912 so the most noticeable reminder of the industry is the row of ‘cement’ cottages in Cliff Road, so called because they were built to house the cement workers.

During the latter years of the 19th century, Waldringfield anchorage accommodated a fleet of Thames barges , snows, billybouys, ketches and schooners, awaiting their turn to load or unload at the quay and pier for the Cement Works, or  the pilot to take them up to Woodbridge. Some barges unloaded their cargoes of London manure, bricks or timber on the beach taking away Coprolite, hay or straw. It was quite common in those days to see a dozen of those picturesque vessels peacefully at anchor at the Waldringfield Reach. When the wind came from the north, clouds of dirty brown smoke from the cement Factory enveloped the beach, making it almost untenable. Visitors in those days were few, and yachts were practically unknown. Woodbridge was then the recognised centre for yachts and pleasure craft. Waldringfield was but a small agricultural and industrial community, giving little time or thought to the beauties and attractions of the Deben. Unlike the present time. 

Today Waldringfield is an attractive village, at the end of a no-through road with a small, but popular beach. There are no public toilets at the beach.  Parking for Patrons can be found at the Maybush Public House as well as a pay and display car park which is available to the general public.
The village is under enormous threat from new residential developments and increasing visitor numbers. It is becoming apparent it could soon suffocate. The warning signs of this are the increasingly grid-locked traffic, the proliferation of road signs, parked vehicles impeding residents cars and emergency services and so on. The villagers are alarmed by these developments, both for ourselves and for the many visitors we welcome here throughout the year.