It contains a significant portion of the European reserve of vegetated shingle habitat,[3] which is internationally scarce, highly fragile, and very easily damaged.

Having proved the technology on Orford Ness, Robert Watson-Watt and his team moved to nearby Bawdsey Manor and developed the Chain Home radar system in time for its vital role in the Battle of Britain.

Military structures – the Bomb Ballistics Building, the Black Beacon, the 'pagodas' used for explosive design – have been converted into viewing spots.

[22][a] Owing to its military history, its stark appearance and the fact that it was closed to the public for many decades, several apocryphal stories have circulated about Orford Ness.

The best-known is the suggestion that Nazi troops attempted to invade England and actually disembarked at the tip of the peninsula near Shingle Street, before being repelled with a wall of fire.

Official sources denied that any such attempted invasion took place, an assertion confirmed by classified documents released in 1993.

In 2013, Trinity House announced that the lighthouse was to be decommissioned as an aid to navigation and marked on UKHO charts as disused.

[2] In September 2023, the National Trust employed contractor Bam (working with Historic England and University College London's Bartlett School for Sustainable Construction) to survey the site - in particular, the AWRE Labs 4 and 5, or pagodas - using drones and a dog-like robot named Spot, manufactured by US firm Boston Dynamics.

[25] Over time, this process leads to the formation of stable ridges of fine particles, and swails of coarser shingle.