The Essex Way

A long-distance footpath stretching for 81 miles right across the county, The Essex Way officially starts in Epping and ends in Harwich but, as it’s signposted both ways, it’s just as easy to start at the coast and head inland too.
The full route includes sections along the Rivers Blackwater, Colne and Stour. This final section (or first, if you’re starting at the coast!) is particularly lovely and has lots to look out for, including the home of the Master of the Mayflower, the Harwich ship which carried the Pilgrim Fathers to America in 1620, Britain’s oldest purpose-built cinema and the famous Halfpenny Pier.
Nature-lovers are well catered for on this walk – saltmarshes are the most natural of all the Essex wildlife habitats, and among their rare species are the Essex Emerald moth and sea purslane, a plant thought extinct in Britain for 50 years before it was rediscovered in Essex in 1987. At Wrabness Nature Reserve you might see owls, yellowhammers, whitethroats, turtle dove, song thrush, nightingales and bullfinches. Wrabness is where you can also get an ‘up close and personal’ view of the exuberant House for Essex (above), designed by FAT Architecture and Grayson Perry to evoke the tradition of wayside and pilgrimage chapels. Here, specially-commissioned artworks including furnishings, pots and mosaic floors celebrate the story of Perry creation Julie Cope and her life in Essex (for details of holidays there, see p5