River Orwell

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The River Orwell from Suffolk Yacht Harbour

The River Orwell is a river in the county of Suffolk, England. Its source above the tidal limit, the river is known as the River Gipping. It broadens into an estuary at Ipswich and flows into the North Sea at Felixstowe after joining with the River Stour at Shotley.

The writer Eric Blair chose the pen name under which he would later become famous, George Orwell, because of his love for the river.

The Orwell is a popular river for sailing. Interest originally centred on the hamlet of Pin Mill (featured in two children's novels by Arthur Ransome: We Didn't Mean to go to Sea and Secret Water) and its "hard". Since the 1970s marinas have opened at Levington (Suffolk Yacht Harbour, pictured), Woolverstone, Fox's just outside Ipswich, and two marinas in the old Ipswich Wet Dock.

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