Forget the image of fast-talking chavs and bottle blondes, Essex has a charm that has been buried beneath too many lazy TV ‘reality’ shows. James Ruddy reveals all
Finchingfield 'the most photographed village' in England (image Sue Mountjoy)First a confession: after more than two decades in East Anglia, I never bothered to venture down the A12 to Essex, which had always seemed a depressing delta of mudflats bordered by greasy spoon seafronts inhabited by ne’er do wells with squeaky voices and evil intent.
How misinformed I was. A few days spent in sunny Southend-on-Sea and then heading up-county to the rolling green-felt fields and thatched medieval villages of North Essex and I became a penitent with many apologies to make.
The county, where England’s best landscape painter John Constable produced great works like The Hay Wain and Dedham Mill, has so much that remains as chocolate-box-picturesque as it was in his 19th century heyday. It is also packed with fine eateries, ancient pubs, fascinating museums and friendly people (with hardly a fake Burberry handbag in sight).
So, over five glorious days my partner and photographer Sue Mountjoy found several gems.
Forget Southend’s dodgems and the amusement arcades on the central seafront, where every inch of beach is rammed with sunbed-hogging Londoners in August. In either direction we found delightful alternatives, with miles of empty sand backed by majestic beach huts eastward along the ‘millionaire row’ of Thorpe Bay, whilst to the west we wandered through the delightful independent shops of Leigh-on-Sea as well as the cockle sheds, historic inns and cobbled streets of Old Leigh fishing village.
Further along the coast, we headed for Canvey Island, which was a hotbed of rock music in the 1970s boasting homegrown outfits like Eddie and the Hot Rods and Dr Feelgood. We were able to follow a Feelgood trail, from the Canvey Club which provided the cover for the Sneakin Suspicion album to the Lobster Smack Inn where the band’s guitarist and singer songwriter Wilko Johnson launched his autobiography. Ah, nostalgia.
And then there was the amazing accommodation. We stayed at the four-star boutique Roslin Beach Hotel, on Thorpe Bay, which was a revelation due to its bright and lively Miami South Beach-style interiors, as well as its friendly and unstuffy atmosphere, great food and wide sea views.
It was there we came across Jacqui Dallimore the managing director, who has been at the hotel for the past 17 years and has an amazing story about her upbringing. Born to an unmarried Limerick mother who bravely left Ireland to give birth in a London convent, Jacqui was adopted six weeks later by a Southend couple “who were the best parents in the world,: she says proudly, and, as well as having two of their own sons, always called her “their special little Irish girl”.
Nowadays, the former travel agent says she loves having Irish guests - some of whom, she recounts, have spent all night in the bar during wedding parties, claiming they were ‘waiting up to wave off granny when she left in the morning””.
Before ending our two days in the resort, we had to take the bracing walk along Southend Pier, the world’s longest at 1.34 miles, and the scene of several boat crashes, storms and fires since it was constructed in 1830. At the end is the lifeboat station, a decent chip shop and the Pier Railway terminus, which saved us from taking the windy slog back.
Next day, after a hearty Roslin Beach breakfast, we headed north for a taste of inland Essex, close to Constable country and three nights at one of the three tranquil Bullocks Farm Fieldbarns, which are nestled in countryside just 10 minutes from Stansted Airport and provide a spacious, very modern and well-equipped base (even offering a romantic log burner) from which you can tour the area at any time of year.
On the way there, we meandered through the beautiful Crouch Valley to stop off at New Hall Vineyards, which has been growing vines and making English wine for 50 years in an area which even served the historic toasts for the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215.
Forget the cheesy cocktails and Liquid Diamond Prosecco of TV’s TOWIE Essex stereotypes, New Hall provided us with the county’s classy reality, including a fascinating vineyard tour and a tasting (which can be booked) of some fine white, red, rose and sparkling varieties that have regularly knocked the socks off critics and won countless major medals.
Touring locally over the next few days lifted the lid on the beauty of North Essex. At the River Blackwater port of Maldon, famed for its sea salt as well as its Promenade Park riverside walk and beach huts, we wandered down to Hythe Quay to admire its ancient vessels, including elegant Thames barges, that do day trips regularly.
At Saffron Walden, we lunched at the family-run Angela Reed Café inside the upmarket interior furnishing Aladdin’s Cave of 13 showrooms on five floors, before ambling round a town that is dripping with pastel painted medieval houses, big and small, as well as museums, galleries, gardens and notably the majestic St Mary’s Church, where, in 1647, Oliver Cromwell urged his disgruntled New Model Army to follow him on a ‘holy war’ to Ireland (it was two years later that he finally invaded and wrought havoc, killing and transporting countless thousands).
Nearby, we toured the finest remaining Jacobean house in the country, Audley End, including its ‘Downton-style’ experience of life upstairs and downstairs. Then there was Finchingfield, said to be ‘the UK’s most photographed village’ where residents were protesting plans to demolish and replace their 200-year old ‘weak’ bridge.
It was at Great Dunmow that we experienced our most jaw-dropping Essex experience when we stepped into Talliston House and Gardens which is one of the most extraordinary homes in Britain – a former 3-bed council semi which has been converted by its owner, over 25 years, into a haven of history and fantasy in which each of the 13 rooms has been carefully recreated into a specific place and period.
After a tour led by the creator John Trevillian, followed by afternoon tea, we were left still trying to absorb an experience that had taken us through an exact replica of everything, from a 1950s New Orleans kitchen and a Victorian dining room to a Moorish bedroom, a bygone Japanese tea room and even a Scottish Edwardian Hall.
Essex like TOWIE? Don’t you believe it.
Factfile
Information: www.visitessex.com
Roslin Hotel www.roslinhotel.com
Bullocks Farm www.bullocks-farm.com
