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For the composer Benjamin Britten, the marshlands and big skies of his native Suffolk coastline were an inspiration.

So it was apt that our chief music critic, Richard Morrison, joined the group of Times readers for an interpretive walk through the countryside that gave rise to the operas Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, and The Turn of the Screw.

We began with a visit to Snape Maltings, an enormous Victorian-era barley processing facility that looms large over the surrounding flatlands.

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Rendered derelict by its closure in 1960, the Maltings complex did not stay so for long - Britten and his collaborators set to work converting the main buildings into concert spaces which now host the annual Aldeburgh Festival, a celebration of avant-garde music.

Turning east, we followed the Sailors' Path through the sea of rushes that flank the tidal River Alde. Dotted along this route are a number of random works of sculpture, some of which are so understated as to go nearly unnoticed.

One piece we discovered on a boardwalk in Snape Warren was quietly disturbing: a bevy of willow stakes emerging from the marsh to reach head height marked out the sea level forecast for 2048; this land may soon be gone.

Passing The Red House, Britten's writing sanctuary, our footpath made a beeline for the windswept pebble beach north of Aldeburgh.

We crunched over the stones to fetch up at The Scallop, a stark memorial to Britten's legacy which bears a line from Peter Grimes: "I hear those voices that will not be drowned".

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