It is a centre for boat-building, rope-making and sail-making and has been since the Middle Ages. Edward III and Sir Francis Drake had fighting ships built in Woodbridge.
The town has a restored tidemill, one of only 4 in the UK, and one of the earliest - a mill was first recorded on this site in 1170, operated by the Augustinian Canons. In 1536, it passed to King Henry VIII. In 1564, Queen Elizabeth I granted the mill to Thomas Seckford.
Sutton Hoo, a group of low grassy mounds famous for turning up Anglo-Saxon treasure of one of the earliest English kings, Redwald, overlooks Woodbridge from the Eastern Bank of the Deben.