This short, circular, flat, 4-mile route goes mostly through ancient woodland, starting in the medieval hunting grounds of Writtle Forest. There are plenty of opportunities for wildlife spotting along the way; we saw deer, rabbits, squirrels, birds, and a rat. For the most part it was easy to navigate but as always, having a map never hurts. If you do this walk after lockdown, there’s a pub at the end.
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 …
The quiet, flat 12 mile route offers both farmland and coastal terrain. At roughly halfway you reach the main points of interest; Bradwell Shell Bank and Chapel of St. Peter on the Wall. There are other elements preventing this route feeling like too much a trek; three pubs, Church of St. Nicholas, Bradwell Waterside Marina, Bradwell Power Station, and of course, the coastal views. The seawall section is easy to follow, but over-zealous sowing and poor signage makes some of the inland route hard to follow, even with a map.
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 well-trodden route offers plenty of coastal views and wildlife to enjoy while being easily accessible by rail and therefore never too far from civilisation. The bustling Thames Estuary is home to marine wildlife, fishing fleets and container ships. As is to be expected then, the walk has numerous examples of urban and wild coexisting. The walking route is busy and suffers from graffiti and litter in places but there’s an abundance of wildlife to make up for it; we were lucky enough to spot an adder!
Yet another great walking route we found on essexwalks.com, which we followed to the letter. The possibility of finishing at The Three Hills pub tempted us to start the route in Bartlow. However, the highlight of this walk for most will be Barlow Hills, ancient roman burial mounds, so we’d advise not crossing that off right at the start. There’s quite a lot of farmland mileage between Ashdon and Bartlow and it’s best to have this at the start of the walk, rather than the end.
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.
This walk had so much promise; Jack’s first outing on a beach, fish & chips, WWII defences, eroding headland, fossils, a harbour, and The Naze nature reserve. While we don’t recommend this exact route, there’s still plenty to see around the headland, just make sure you time your trip to co-incidence with low tide for maximum benefit. This particular route had a few eyesores but the main drag for us was the circa. 3 miles of endless, overgrown sea wall next to the reserve; it was just too relentless and monotonous in the summer heat.