The villages of Trimley St.Martin and Trimley St.Mary are situated between the Orwell and the Deben Rivers within the Felixstowe Peninsula. One of their notable features is that the two churches are in the one churchyard. The local tale of two quarrelsome sisters building the two churches to vie with each other has no basis in fact.

Trimley’s most famous son was Thomas Cavendish, who lived at Grimston Hall. He was an Elizabethan adventurer, born 1560 an lost at sea 1592. He was the second Englishman to circumnavigate the world, bringing home much booty. The village sign of Trimley St.Martin depicts Cavendish and has an inscription attributed to Cavendish, "My God, said Thomas Cavendish, whatever may befall, I’ll ever love dear Trimley and the oaks of Grimston Hall" !. The old French cannon standing at the corner of Gunn Lane was probably brought back by sailors.

At one time the inhabitants of Trimley were known as "Treacle Miners", perhaps connected with the digging out of coprolite, the fore-runner of fertilizer. In 1914/18 in Trimley and district there was the last recorded outbreak of bubonic plague, when five people died in Trimley.

Today’s inhabitants of what is almost a small town in population are employed at Felixstowe Docks, BT at Martlesham and industry in Ipswich. Farming is still carried on but with much reduced numbers. There are two public houses, The Three Mariners in St.Mary and the Hand in Hand in St.Martin.