Photo: Adrian Cable · CC BY-SA 2.0Parks and walks in Martlesham
The Suffolk Coast & Heaths National Landscape reaches the edge of Martlesham. Footpaths add up to 37 km in the village and the kilometre around it, 3.8 for every square kilometre. 69% of residents live within a 5-minute walk of a park or playing field. Martlesham grades B for the outdoors. A character grade: it isn’t part of the overall grade.
What kind of outdoors village is Martlesham?
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and bad.
Martlesham’s strongest suit is dense footpaths, followed by the Suffolk Coast & Heaths National Landscape close by. Where it falls short is how far some homes are from a park.
Martlesham grades B for the outdoors
Each chart is every UK town of 1,000 or more on one measure: the green bar is Martlesham, the dashed line the typical town. The number is the share of towns it beats; the five are averaged and the average ranked again.
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Graded, never part of the overall grade (like History and Civic life). It measures what is mapped: OS Open Greenspace leaves out woodland and open-access land that isn’t a park, and OpenStreetMap’s rural paths are more complete in some places than others.
Martlesham is 19th of 60 UK villages its size for the outdoors
The 60 UK towns and cities of 1,900 to 2,100 people with an Outdoors Grade. Hover a dot for its figures; tap one for its page.
Against villages its size, Martlesham stands out most for path per km²: only 9 of the other 59 have more. It falls furthest behind on homes near a park, where 37 of the others do better.
Show as a table
| Town | Outdoors | Green space | Near a park | Path per km² | Protected | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Capel-le-Ferne Kent | A+ | 21.8 | 88% | 4 | 52% |
| 2 | Meliden Clwyd | A+ | 4.2 | 100% | 4.2 | 21% |
| 3 | Vigo Village Kent | A+ | 33.3 | 100% | 2.9 | 44% |
| 4 | Llanfoist Gwent | A+ | 10.7 | 86% | 4.2 | 57% |
| 5 | Ditchingham Norfolk | A+ | 17.2 | 100% | 2.9 | 13% |
| 6 | Bournmoor County Durham | A | 11 | 100% | 4 | 0% |
| 7 | Upper Rissington Gloucestershire | A | 6.2 | 100% | 1.2 | 100% |
| 8 | Churchill Somerset | A | 2.8 | 84% | 3.9 | 39% |
| 9 | Wrington Somerset | A | 3.2 | 100% | 2.6 | 20% |
| 10 | Machen Gwent | A | 3.5 | 100% | 4.4 | 0% |
| 11 | Y Bala Gwynedd | A | 4 | 100% | 1.4 | 67% |
| 12 | South Nutfield Surrey | A− | 2.5 | 100% | 2.7 | 11% |
| 13 | Little Haywood Staffordshire | A− | 1.3 | 100% | 3.3 | 34% |
| 14 | Kirkby Lonsdale Cumbria | B+ | 9.2 | 74% | 2.2 | 40% |
| 15 | Yealmpton Devon | B+ | 1.8 | 87% | 1.8 | 50% |
| 16 | Pontesbury Shropshire | B+ | 3.1 | 63% | 3.8 | 28% |
| 17 | Polesworth Warwickshire | B+ | 13.5 | 100% | 2 | 0% |
| 18 | Valley Gwynedd | B+ | 5 | 33% | 1.2 | 37% |
| 19 | Martlesham Suffolk | B | 2.1 | 69% | 3.8 | 24% |
| 20 | Sandford Dorset | B | 0.3 | 43% | 4.7 | 41% |
| 21 | Wrotham Kent | B | 1.6 | 100% | 1.6 | 49% |
| 22 | Welsh Bicknor Gloucestershire | B | 2.7 | 31% | 3.3 | 45% |
| 23 | Beare Green Surrey | B | 1.6 | 70% | 3.9 | 30% |
| 24 | Wheaton Aston Staffordshire | B− | 2.6 | 100% | 2 | 0% |
| 25 | Dilton Marsh Wiltshire | B− | 2.1 | 67% | 3.5 | 4% |
| 26 | Hutton Cranswick East Riding of Yorkshire | B− | 5 | 100% | 0.9 | 0% |
| 27 | Barmouth Gwynedd | B− | 0.5 | 60% | 2 | 53% |
| 28 | Northleach Gloucestershire | B− | 1.5 | 68% | 2.6 | 100% |
| 29 | Leeswood Clwyd | C+ | 4 | 83% | 0.7 | 2% |
| 30 | Audley Staffordshire | C+ | 3.4 | 83% | 2.3 | 0% |
| 31 | Axbridge Somerset | C+ | 1.3 | 72% | 2.8 | 51% |
| 32 | Landkey Devon | C+ | 2.5 | 100% | 1.4 | 0% |
| 33 | Langtoft Lincolnshire | C+ | 2.8 | 100% | 1 | 0% |
| 34 | Whitchurch Somerset | C+ | 2.3 | 47% | 4.4 | 0% |
| 35 | Wychbold Worcestershire | C | 2.1 | 100% | 1.4 | 0% |
| 36 | Hatton Warwickshire | C | 1.6 | 100% | 2 | 0% |
| 37 | Ramsden Heath Essex | C | 2.3 | 82% | 2.4 | 0% |
| 38 | West Haddon Northamptonshire | C | 2.3 | 100% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 39 | Longrock Cornwall | C | 0.7 | 60% | 1.2 | 26% |
| 40 | Barrow Suffolk | C− | 1.1 | 100% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 41 | Chivenor and Wrafton Devon | C− | 0.6 | 0% | 1.7 | 17% |
| 42 | Pool-in-Wharfedale West Yorkshire | C− | 2.1 | 44% | 1.6 | 7% |
| 43 | Ashwell Hertfordshire | C− | 3 | 52% | 1.8 | 0% |
| 44 | Stocksfield Northumberland | C− | 2.2 | 40% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 45 | Stoke Golding Leicestershire | C− | 1.4 | 85% | 1.8 | 0% |
| 46 | Bishop Burton and Cherry Burton East Riding of Yorkshire | C− | 2.5 | 78% | 0.3 | 0% |
| 47 | Briston Norfolk | D | 2.7 | 69% | 1.2 | 0% |
| 48 | Broughton Northamptonshire | D | 2.7 | 70% | 0.9 | 0% |
| 49 | Baschurch Shropshire | D | 2.3 | 72% | 1.1 | 0% |
| 50 | Cookley Worcestershire | D | 2.3 | 52% | 1.8 | 0% |
| 51 | Hutton Rudby North Yorkshire | D | 1.6 | 35% | 1.1 | 13% |
| 52 | Morda Shropshire | D | 0.7 | 84% | 1.9 | 0% |
| 53 | Curry Rivel Somerset | D | 1.9 | 33% | 2.1 | 0% |
| 54 | Greylees Lincolnshire | D | 1.5 | 79% | 1.1 | 0% |
| 55 | Shawbury Shropshire | D− | 2.2 | 30% | 0.9 | 0% |
| 56 | Wheldrake North Yorkshire | D− | 1.4 | 72% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 57 | Tollerton Nottinghamshire | D− | 0.6 | 19% | 1.9 | 0% |
| 58 | Rossett Clwyd | D− | 0.3 | 55% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 59 | Goostrey Cheshire | D− | 0.3 | 42% | 1.7 | 0% |
| 60 | Bottisham Cambridgeshire | D− | 0 | 0% | 1.3 | 0% |
Parks, footpaths & countryside
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is Martlesham’s built-up area.
7 in 10 Martlesham residents live within a 5-minute walk of a park
Each square is 1 in 100 residents: green lives within 400 m of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace).
About 600 people live further than that. Playing fields count, so a park within reach isn’t always one with paths or trees; 11 playgrounds are mapped in and around the village, about one for every 180 residents.
National Parks and National Landscapes around Martlesham
Protected landscapes within 30 km, by direction and distance from the edge of the built-up area; circle size shows each one’s area. National Landscapes were called Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty until 2023.
Suffolk Coast & Heaths
24% of the land within 5 km of Martlesham is National Park or National Landscape, more than 80% of UK towns.
4 waymarked walks pass through or near Martlesham
37 km of footpaths, bridleways and rights of way are mapped in Martlesham and the kilometre around it, 3.8 km for every square kilometre (the typical UK town has 3.0). Bars show each route’s kilometres within 2 km of the village.
Close to home, the Fynn Valley Walk has 7 km of local walk within 2 km of the village. The regional route here is the Sandlings Walk.
Waymarked walks are OpenStreetMap walking routes. Public rights of way are only as complete as the map in each area.
The best walking months in Martlesham: May to September
The village’s 1991–2020 averages (Met Office HadUK-Grid) and the daylight at its latitude. Outlined months have 12½+ hours of daylight, highs of 15 °C or more and little rain for the town.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daylight (h) | 8.2 | 9.8 | 11.7 | 13.8 | 15.7 | 16.7 | 16.3 | 14.6 | 12.6 | 10.5 | 8.7 | 7.8 |
| High (°C) | 7 | 8 | 10 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 22 | 22 | 19 | 15 | 11 | 8 |
| Rain (mm) | 53 | 43 | 40 | 36 | 47 | 51 | 54 | 55 | 51 | 65 | 63 | 61 |
April is the driest month (36 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 22 °C). Winter days are short, about 8 hours of daylight in December, and 65 mm of rain falls in October, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 35 nights a year. The climate in Martlesham →
Beaches near Martlesham
4% of the area within 5 km of Martlesham is sea, so the Outdoors Grade counts it as inland. 2 beaches are mapped within 5 km, 1 with a name.
Sea: the area outside the ONS coastline (mean high water). Bathing water quality is published by the Environment Agency (England) and Natural Resources Wales; check it before swimming.
11 playgrounds
Mapped within 2 km of the village in OpenStreetMap, against the typical UK village its size per resident. Named places are listed with directions; unnamed ones are only counted.
Every named place, with directions
Nature reserves 3
Playgrounds 11
Plus 9 playgrounds without a name on the map.
The outdoors in nearby towns
The nearest towns of 1,000+ within 12 miles. Tap a town for its outdoors page.
| Town | Outdoors | Green space, ha per 1,000 | Near a park | Protected within 5 km |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Martlesham | B | 2.1 | 69% | 24% |
| Martlesham Heath 0.7 mi | A− | 3.5 | 68% | 25% |
| Kesgrave 1.7 mi | A | 3.3 | 97% | 14% |
| Woodbridge 2.1 mi | B+ | 1.7 | 80% | 30% |
| Grundisburgh 3.0 mi | B+ | 2.2 | 100% | 3% |
| Melton 3.3 mi | A+ | 6.5 | 100% | 33% |
| Sutton Common 4.6 mi | C+ | 0.8 | 51% | 85% |
Melton, 3.3 miles away, grades A+, the best next door: every resident lives within 400 m of a park. Melton has at least twice Martlesham’s green space per resident.
Questions about the outdoors in Martlesham
Is Martlesham near a National Park?
It covers 443 km² and was designated in 1970.
What are the best walks near Martlesham?
4 waymarked walking routes pass within 2 km of the village, including the Sandlings Walk, Fynn Valley Walk and Marshes, Mudflats and Woodbridge Circular Walk, Kyson Hill.
How many people in Martlesham live near a park?
69% of residents live within 400 m, about a 5-minute walk, of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace). The typical UK town is 83%.
When is the best time of year for walking in Martlesham?
May to September: the longest days, the warmest afternoons and the least rain of the year, from the Met Office 1991–2020 averages.
Is Martlesham good for walking?
For paths, yes: 3.8 km of footpath and right of way per square kilometre, more than 77% of UK towns. For park space per person it beats 49% (2.1 ha per 1,000 residents).
How is the Outdoors Grade worked out?
From five measures, each placed among UK towns of 1,000 or more: public green space per resident, the share living near a park, National Park or National Landscape within 5 km, footpaths per square kilometre, and the sea within 5 km. It is a character grade and isn’t part of Martlesham’s overall grade.
Where Martlesham’s outdoors figures come from
- Parks and green space: Ordnance Survey OS Open Greenspace (parks and gardens, playing fields, play spaces, and their access points). Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- National Parks and National Landscapes: Natural England and Natural Resources Wales boundaries, areas and designation dates, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Footpaths, walking routes, beaches and things to do: © OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database License (ODbL), via Geofabrik, 16 October 2026.
- Historic parks, listed buildings and monuments: Historic England, National Heritage List for England, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Rain and temperature: Met Office HadUK-Grid 1991–2020 averages for the town; daylight calculated from its latitude.
- The sea: ONS Countries (December 2024) boundaries clipped to mean high water. Residents near a park: ONS Census 2021 output areas.
- Grade: TownRatings’ Outdoors Grade, ranked against UK towns only.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.