text: The beach is mainly shingle and wide in places, allowing fishing boats to draw up onto the beach above the high tide, but it narrows at the neck of Orford Ness. The shingle bank allows access to the Ness from the north, passing a Martello tower and two yacht clubs at the site of the former village of Slaughden. Aldeburgh was flooded in the North Sea flood of 1953, after which its flood defences were strengthened. The beach received a Blue Flag rural beach award in 2005.
  The town is within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), with a number of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and nature reserves in its locality. The Alde-Ore Estuary SSSI covers the area surrounding the river from Snape to its mouth, including the whole of Orford Ness. This contains several salt marsh and mudflat habitats. The Leiston-Aldeburgh SSSI extends from the northern edge of the town over a range of habitats, including grazing marsh and heathland. It includes Thorpeness Mere and the North Warren RSPB reserve, an area of wildlife and habitat conservation, and nature trails run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
  Two smaller geological SSSI units lie on the southern edges. Aldeburgh Brick Pit, of , shows a clear stratigraphy of Red Crag deposits above Corralline Crag. Aldeburgh Hall Pit is a shallow pit  in area, featuring a section of Corralline Crag. It is seen as one of the best sites in Britain for Neogene fauna.