Today I braved a fairly labyrinthine regional bus system and made my way up the coast to Southwold, which I believe is the only town I've ever visited where the lighthouse is actually in town. It reappears when you least expect it.

Also, there was this, on the pier:

Verdict: it was worth the trip. Also because I got to ride through Thorpeness, and to see a sign (somewhere else) painted in white on the side of an unfinished building (a house, I believe) made of cement blocks, "Leave me alone I am an innocent man"--and then followed by a pair of initials linked by a heart. Small-town England is no less strange than small-town America, but it is differently so.