This North Essex walk is one for the nature lovers, taking in four nature reserves. The walk can (and should!) be extended by rambling along the trails within these reserves before re-joining the main route. There’s a variety of terrain; farmland, woodland, meadows, and River Stour estuary and salt marsh. It’s an undulating walk with …
Although a long walk, this flat and peaceful route is easy going. It starts in North Fambridge, ending in Burnham-on-Crouch, with a train journey and short walk back to the start. Most of the walk is an easy to follow 9 miles of seawall along the River Crouch on the Salt Marsh Coast Trail. This is not as repetitive as it might sound. There is plenty of wildlife and as the river approaches the sea it becomes livelier and the surrounding scenery changes.
This popular route, an OS premium route and also mapped by essexwalks.com, underwhelmed us. While the ample water en-route makes for plenty of wildlife, the route is still a little urban for our liking – it passes a huge tesco! The main problem is that the highlight of the walk is at the start, or the end if you prefer. Or both, as we did.
This is one of many walks around Dedham and Flatford, and away from the two villages themselves, this is an incredibly quiet and peaceful walk. We’ve never been to Dedham Vale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) before, but at 90 square km, we will definitely be returning soon. We adapted our route, which has already had a few positive ratings!, from this suggestion by Dedham Vale AONB & Stour Valley Project, who have links to numerous pdf maps on their website. John Constable and other renowned landscape painters have famously immortalised this area.