HUGE THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO GOT INVOLVED IN OUR 2019 INTER-ESTUARY PUB QUIZ WHICH RAISED £44,000.

The Save Our Suffolk Estuary Pub Quiz 2019, which raised money to protect the estuary towns, villages and farmland from flooding, featured 12 venues and more than 600 people competing in parallel pub quizzes on Friday 22nd November.

The community fundraising quiz ‘So You Thought You Knew Suffolk’ tested local knowledge and was hailed a roaring success with an army of enthusiastic volunteers co-ordinated by Clare Greenwell working together with pub landlords to create a sparkling evening of entertainment. 

Local celebrity quiz masters included Nick Robinson, Maggi Hambling, Brad Jones and David Sheepshanks, who introduced the evening by a showing of a new Save Our Suffolk Estuary film explaining the need to maintain the estuary river walls.

The top team was Up The Alde at The Plough & Sail in Snape. Trustee and Funding Group chair, Professor Jane Maxim was “absolutely delighted” at the response to the quiz, which was previously run in 2017 when it raised £42,500. Thanks to match funding and the support of local sponsors Best of Suffolk and Pinney’s of Orford, all of the £44,000 raised will be used to upgrade flood defences. 

One of the volunteer quiz hosts, Mary James, owner of The Aldeburgh Bookshop and resident of Snape said “26 homes and 2 pubs, including The Crown, flooded in Snape back in December 2013 during the storm surge. It was frightening to watch the speed of the water rising up and witnessing the devastation it caused”. 

The money donated to the AOET will be used as part of the Save Our Suffolk Estuary campaign which supports the upgrade of vital flood defences of the River Alde & Ore to protect the area’s economy, homes and landscape from floods, such as those of 2013 and also January 1953, when the streets of Aldeburgh were flooded and 41 people lost their lives in Suffolk.