Southend Pier is the town’s historical icon as well as being the longest pleasure pier in the world, at 1.33 miles. A great deal of work has taken place in recent years and the Pier is going through a period of immense change. At the Pier Head a new lifeboat station and sundeck were built […]
Tilbury Fort
The artillery fort at Tilbury on the Thames estuary protected London’s seaward approach from the 16th century through to World War II. Henry VIII built the first fort here, and Queen Elizabeth famously rallied her army nearby to face the threat of the Armada. The present fort was begun in 1672 under Charles II: it […]
Saffron Walden Museum
Saffron Walden Museum opened in 1835. With wide-ranging collections, from moccasins and mummy cases to mammoth tusks and Wallace the lion, it still contains much to “stand awhile and admire”. This award-winning, “friendly, family-size museum” is open 363 days a year. Collections cover the human and natural history of north-west Essex, from ancient times to […]
Saffron Walden Castle
Walden Castle, is early 12th century keep built on a artificially heightened hill. Keep later used as semaphore station, barn and lime kiln. The Bailey ditch has been found by various excavations, and suggests that there were two ditch phases. The earliest bailey appears to have encompassed the whole circuit of Bury Hill. This was […]
Pleshy Castle
Pleshey Castle is probably Essex’s best example of an earth-built Norman motte and bailey castle. The whole village of Pleshey still lies within its Norman defences which sweep round in a great semi circle. Privately owned. A village in Mid-Essex, half-way between Chelmsford and Dunmow; the castle was once the seat of the Constable of […]