Toytown-by-the-sea

How about a bit of good, clean fun? A couple of hours from London on the Suffolk coast, Thorpeness is a wholesome Edwardian seaside resort that promises family enjoyment even in winter.

Built early last century by a man with a grand plan, Glencairn Stuart Ogilvie, it became fashionable between the wars among the well-heeled, particularly those escaping the searing heat of the British empire.

Ogilvie's vision - a perfect, healthy, family-holiday resort - was a contrived tiny village centred around a golf club, tennis club and man-made Meare boating lake. It fell into disrepair in the Seventies, but was restored in the Nineties by a new owner, Tim Rowan-Robinson.

Today the manicured gardens and quaint holiday homes look untouched by time. Can an out-of-season English beach holiday cut it for a modern family? We took our two-year-old son Samuel and baby daughter to find out.

Thorpeness is a fantasy resort of mock-Tudor meets Cape Cod-style painted clapboard buildings. We half expected Noddy to come around the corner in his little yellow car. An absurdly cute white wooden windmill towers above the holiday bungalows; opposite is another architectural folly, the House in the Clouds, a small wooden residence which, from a distance, seems to sit atop the trees.

Village life - Thorpeness has about 130 permanent residents, largely retired or working in tourism - revolves around the weeping willow-edged Meare boating lake. Even the ducks on the adjacent pond boast exotic pedigree.

Our simply furnished two-bedroom apartment overlooked the sea. From the small balcony we watched fishing boats and ships pass by. Up the coast the outsize golf ball of Sizewell B, the nuclear power plant, shimmered ominously on the horizon.

Down the path to the beach we ate ripe blackberries picked from the brambles and threw pebbles into the sea. A pebble beach, we discovered, is not easy for toddlers to walk on.

A team of energetic students run the children's activities during school holidays, including tennis coaching, golf lessons, picnics, discos and noisy games of housey-housey. Our visit didn't coincide with a school holiday but the accommodating Golf Club Hotel provided us with the necessary baby paraphernalia - cots and high-chairs and even a staff member to baby-sit.

Most other visitors were here for the 18-hole heathland course, but children and golf don't go, so we headed off to the Meare to hire a rowing boat. "The water's only two or three feet deep," the boatman told me. So Sam and I set off for adventure.

The lake is themed on Peter Pan (J M Barrie, his creator, was a great friend of Ogilvie) with islands and jetties. We disembarked to enter Wendy's cottage and the Smuggler's Cave, looking for treasure before jumping back on to the boat to escape imaginary ticking crocodiles. We were pursued by two swans near Pirate's Cove, but we put our backs into it (well, I did) and outrowed them after a hard chase. When we returned, husband and baby were covered in ice-cream - the proper stuff, mind - bought from the little wooden shop.

That evening we all ate at the Dolphin, a gastro-pub slap bang next to our apartment. Bangers and mash, lamb chops and scampi and chips were delicious, if a little slow arriving. Best meal of all, though, was dinner at the White Lion Hotel, less than two miles away in Aldeburgh, minus the kids. The baby-sitter (£3.50 an hour) put them to bed while we ate perfectly cooked Dover sole in a 16th century wood-panelled dining room.

As we left the Suffolk seaside, feeling steeped in a time warp, quaint and contrived, I realised we'd loved every minute of it.

Way to go

Thorpeness Country Club self-catering/ apartments (01728 452176/ www.thorpeness.co.uk), Thorpeness, Suffolk, cost £230-£315 per week, there is current availability. Meals can be taken at the hotel or the Dolphin. Alternatively, stay at the Thorpeness Hotel and Golf Club. Two nights B&B in a family room, with unlimited golf, cost £140, two children under eight stay free.