Sue Field ignores the comments about Essex girls and white stilettos to explore why the county has a lot to offer the smallholder, despite its close proximity to London…

Around the county of Essex, Great Baddow is a delightful area close to Chelmsford, with excellent road and rail links to London and the remainder of Essex. With much to explore, from the attractive market town of Saffron Walden, the ancient hunting forests at Epping and Britain’s oldest recorded town in Colchester (recently given City status), there is plenty to see and do. Essex also boasts a 350 mile coastline, making it one of the longest in England, from Purfleet to Manningtree, with many coastal towns, villages and wonderful beaches.

This biodiverse coastline has marshes and wetlands which are essential to migratory birds and the Blackwater Estuary is an SSSI area of 4,395 hectares, designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. Colchester, on the River Colne which runs into the Estuary, is renowned for its annual Oyster Festival and oysters have been harvested in the Estuary for over a thousand years.

Abberton Reservoir, managed, as are several sites in Essex, by the Essex Wildlife Trust, has parking areas, a visitor centre and hides for keen birdwatchers. Just along the coastline is Fingringhoe Wick Nature Discovery Park, Essex Wildlife Trust’s first site and which attracts over 200 species of birds. It is also an SSSI and of particular interest is the work they are doing to support the Nightingale whose numbers have sadly diminished alarmingly over recent years due to loss of habitat. Visit in April or May to hear their beautiful song.

FAMOUS AND INFAMOUS ESSEX GIRLS AND BOYS
To dispel the myth of your typical Essex girl, here are a few very famous names which you may not realise were born in the County. Two of our most beloved Dames, Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren, are Essex girls, as is Olympian Sally Gunnell. But the ultimate and original Essex Girl must be Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni, whose statue resides in Colchester at the entrance to the railway station. So maybe she wasn’t actually born in the County, but Boudicca definitely deserves to be an honorary EG. Whilst her uprising against the Roman invasion may have failed in AD60/61, she is hailed as a British heroine. Alan Sugar, Glenn Hoddle and Ross Kemp hail from Essex, as does International Chef Jamie Oliver.

Essex has seen its fair share of dubious characters but the most famous must be Dick Turpin, often romanticised but in reality a harsh and cruel highwayman who took no quarter.

So every reason to look seriously at Essex for a property with an acre or two, possibly on the Tendring Peninsular, as property is less expensive the further it
is out from London. With towns such as Clacton, Frinton, Walton on the Naze and numerous smaller villages, there is surely somewhere for your smallholding dream. Don’t overlook this lovely county as just maybe, the only and way is Essex.

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