Coastal Adventure 3
Maldon and Tollesbury
11th and 12th July 2023
Essex
We celebrated the first two days of Jen’s holidays today by heading back to Essex. With an overnight stop booked in Chelmsford, we were set to visit the last two places on the River Blackwater, say goodbye to Maldon and finally begin to move north.
We set off on the Peterborough to Ipswich train which runs every two hours, changing at Stowmarket to reach Chelmsford at lunch time. We found our way to the bus station, which is next to the railway station, stopped for the loo then bought some lunch in a Tesco Express in the bus station. The Maldon bus soon appeared and we set off on a much quicker route than the one we had used on a previous trip. Less than an hour later, we were at the Promenade Park again and enjoyed a stroll down to the water’s edge and a bench for lunch.
After lunch, we split up. Jen particularly wanted to visit Northey Island which is in the river just south of Maldon. According to legend, a battle took place here in August 911 between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings. The local Saxon leader, Byrhtnoth led the defence but was defeated. The battle is commemorated in a poem which Jen studied during her English degree and she has long wanted to visit the site. The path to the causeway across to Northey Island runs from the end of Promenade Park and out onto the river embankment but was just too far for me to walk with no prospect of anywhere to sit down at the end.
Meanwhile I wandered back into the park to the coffee kiosk and indulged in coffee and a flapjack at the tables overlooking the river. An hour or so later, Jen came back and it had started to rain so we walked back to the bus stop for our bus back to Chelmsford for the night.
We had hoped that we would have the opportunity to explore Chelmsford a little but we will now be moving on so will have to come back one day and visit. After checking into the hotel we walked down past the cathedral and through the shopping centre as far as the river but it was too late in the day to find anything open.
Northey Island was the last point on the southern bank of the River Blackwater to visit, so next morning after a good night’s sleep and a filling breakfast we headed back on the bus from Chelmsford to Maldon. The journey was a little fraught as the driver had been having problems with the bus on the inward journey but had been told by the boss to take it out anyway. We made it to Maldon safely and having been out earlier than expected we had an hour to enjoy our final visit to this pretty little town. We reflected on how we had been looking forward to visiting as we walked north and how much we had enjoyed our visits here over the last few years. Looking ahead it had been a landmark as by far the biggest settlement in the area and as the crossing of the Blackwater nearest the sea.
It was time to move on, however, and the north bank of the Blackwater was waiting. Had we walked this section we would have done it in two parts; Maldon to Goldhanger and Goldhanger to Tollesbury. Goldhanger is a tiny village a bit inland from the river bank and Tollesbury is a bigger village located almost at the estuary.
We made the decision to use the bus which serves the two villages and enjoy Goldhanger from the upstairs front seat of a double decker. We have had to take some difficult decisions about which places to actually visit and which to count as visited by passing through them. The north bank of the Blackwater marks a change in step for us and we decided that missing a few smaller settlements with limited public transport access would be acceptable.
Goldhanger is tiny, only eight roads, a church and a closed museum and, as the bus did a loop through the village we saw it all in about three minutes rather than spending a hour there between buses. It is very quiet; one of those idyllic country villages which people aspire to retire too one day and no doubt beneath the surface there is a vibrant community. The bus moved through picking up one passenger who waved the bus down as there are no actual bus stops here.
Once out on the main road again we noticed something quite alarming. The front window of the bus above where I was sitting had a large crack with more cracks spreading out from it. It looked as though it might break any moment and the danger of hitting an overhanging tree branch on these twisty country roads was quite high. We moved back a few seats and enjoyed said twisty country roads from a safer position. The road curves inland here and we could see the river from the bus but it would have been a very lonely and probably not very interesting walk along the river bank so maybe our new method is good.
Soon we pulled into Tollesbury, the end of the road and the bus route although several buses to serve this small settlement. The buses all stop at a shelter in the middle of the square and as we got off, we pointed out the window crack to the driver. He was alarmed and took photos to send back to the garage but pretty soon set off again so presumably was told the bus was safe to return to Maldon. We were pretty certain this particular vehicle had been fetched up from the back of the garage somewhere as it was in far from perfect condition all round. It had very pretty seat fabric though.
The centre of Tollesbury is quite a way from the river and we didn’t have time to walk down to the marina which is where all the boating activity takes place. Tollesbury is known as the village of the plough and the sail and it would not be obvious to anyone visiting the centre of the village that it is on the river at all as farming is an obvious alternative occupation here. We had travelled between fields of golden wheat all ready to be harvested on the way into Tollesbury and more on the way out. On the river side oysters are harvested but the main activity down at the marina is yachting. Until 1951 a railway ran from Colchester to Tollesbury and at one time there were hopes of developing the river area as a proper resort. Maybe it was just as well the plans did not go through as the whole atmosphere of the area would have changed completely.
We walked around, calling in at the Norman church of St Mary with its unusual arrangements for bell ringing. These ropes are above the entrance lobby of the church and let down when needed. Along the road opposite the primary school which serves the village and the countryside around we found a community café and shop. We called in for postcards and a chat and also had a chat with the young man in the small food store.
By the time we got back to the square two more buses had appeared along with three crew members who were eating their lunch in the bus shelter! We clambered on to the 92 bus which would take us to Colchester and the beginning of our journey home.
Had we still been walking, the next section would have been through farmland and villages several miles from the coast as there is no access past the marshes and creeks which make up this part of the estuary into the North Sea. The first village is called Salcott and the nearest the bus goes is a crossroads about a mile away. The next two, Great and Little Wigborough have one bus on a Monday which provides a circular route in and out of Colchester. So today we waved at Salcott across the trees when we stopped at the crossroads and ditto for the Wigboroughs as the bus turned north before it reached them.
We left the bus in Colchester High Street and made the decision to head for home a train earlier than we had planned as we were feeling a little over-explored. Then the puzzle was to find the station. Colchester has two stations, one at the southern end of the city on the branch line out to the coast at Clacton, and the main line one right at the north of the city. I put the directions into Google maps and we set off confidently for the main station in completely the wrong direction! Having walked back to the High Street again we decided to find a bus to take us there instead but that proved very difficult because although we found the bus number we couldn’t find the stop. Eventually, we got directions to the main road at the end of the High street and found our bus.
The trains didn’t connect well at Ipswich and there were signalling problems at Ely but we did make it home in the end only one train ahead of our original plans.
Coast Walk 