The town is close to some major archaeological sites of the Anglo-Saxon period, including the Sutton Hoo burial ship.

It is well known for its boating harbour and tide mill next to the River Deben, in the Suffolk & Essex Coast & Heaths National Landscape.

A ritual site was found while excavations were made for the East Anglia Array, a wind farm at Seven Springs Field.

[12] The area was occupied by the Romans for 300 years after Queen Boudica's failed rebellion in 59 CE, but there is little evidence of their presence.

The earliest record of Woodbridge as such dates from the mid-10th century, when it was acquired by St Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, as part of the endowment of a monastery he helped to refound at Ely, Cambridgeshire in 970.

[13] The Domesday Book of 1086 describes Woodbridge as part of Loes Hundred with 35 households, i.e. one of the largest 20 per cent of settlements recorded.

[15] The town suffered in the plague of 1349, but recovered enough, with encouragement from the Canons and growing general prosperity, to have a new church (St Mary's, behind the buildings on the south side of Market Hill) built of limestone from the Wash and decorated with Thetford flint.

[16] As religious unrest continued under the Roman Catholic Queen Mary, Alexander Gooch, a weaver of Woodbridge, and Alice Driver of Grundisburgh were burnt for heresy on Rushmere Heath.

Subsequent religious settlement under Elizabeth I helped Woodbridge industries such as weaving, sail-cloth manufacture, rope-making and salt making to prosper, along with the wool trade.

The town has various buildings of the Tudor, Georgian, Regency and Victorian periods, and a tide mill in working order, one of only two in the UK and among the earliest.

RAF Woodbridge was used during the Cold War by the United States Air Force as the base for two Tactical Fighter Squadrons until 1993.

It is a civil parish; the town council, which is based at Woodbridge Shire Hall has a mayor and 16 councillors elected for four wards.

[18] The town is currently represented by the Labour MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter in the Suffolk Coastal parliamentary constituency.

[27] Also of interest ecologically are the Quaker Burial Ground[28] and Fen Meadow, 2.67 hectares (6.6 acres) of traditionally managed grassland.

The many clubs and groups cover association football, badminton, birdwatching, bowls, cricket, cruising, netball, road running, rowing, rugby football,[32] swimming, tennis, golf (Woodbridge Golf Club, founded 1893 at Bromeswell listed in the top 100 in England and Ufford Park), yachting and archery.

The town's Deben Leisure Centre and swimming pool were refurbished in 2017–2018 and now provide fuller services since reopening.

Other residents of note include musicians Nate James and Charlie Simpson; actors Brian Capron and Nicholas Pandolfi; painter Thomas Churchyard; Director-General of the BBC Ian Jacob; abolitionist John Clarkson; Roy Keane the football manager, and Thomas Seckford, official at the court of Queen Elizabeth I.