R32: Tollesbury to just beyond Salcott – 3rd February 2024

“Flat landscapes are, to my mind even more psychologically challenging than mountainous terrain” (Warpole, 2010, in Evans & Robson (eds), p.63)

Cor blimey, we have been walking a double-ended loop of this beautiful isle for a decade!! Slowly, and most happily. So for our 10-year anniversary, we had the pleasure of estuarine Essex and the end of the so far completed ECP. It was as always, so good to get back to the path especially this time as we’d been thwarted in early December by a number of factors, most prominently my badly-sprained ankle. I’m still wearing a tubi-grip and feeling more tentative than usual but happy to be walking with Barbara.

Matt kindly came with us as it made it much easier logistically and he used the time to run more than we walked, and on the second day to walk more than we walked! It’s part of the radical acceptance that I’m trying to embrace that such outcomes no longer bother me (or certainly much less than they used to).

Anyways, we were dropped at Tollesbury in weak February sunlight

and straight out onto the saltmarsh. A dog walker who started out just ahead of us had an over-friendly blonde Labrador which insisted on walking next to us much to its owner’s frustration. Once we were clear of the dog the sounds of the marsh at low tide were discernable, notably the plaintive call of the curlew. Passed more ancient red hills and modern day sewage works and then headed out onto Old Hall Marshes and Joyce’s Head.

Saw one couple away ahead of us and then no-one until Salcott. The honking of the large flocks of Brent Geese became more intense and we stopped for lunch at a bench looking out over an inland lake festooned with a gaggle of them having a party. As we watched, other birds with frilly wings kept flying over and I can only imagine they were lapwings from the shape of the wing and their size and colour.

Hunger sated, we put on the playlist that Barbara had curated. Her Spotify didn’t work initially but somehow or other she managed to get back to almost exactly the same place which made for a more pleasingly shared experience.

There were some achingly beautiful tracks and then some ridiculously intense and overwhelming ones creating a full-on experience that I can’t remember having had from a playlist for ages. The Tollesbury lightship, Bradwell power station and West Mersea were our landmark accompaniments – moving around in the landscape as they are prone to do in the flat, morphing vistas. As Warpole (2005) describes it: “shapeshifting, tidal, debatable lands” and again: “vast skies, uninterrupted horizons at the far edges”. My personal experience at that moment was Wigeons to the left of me, Teal to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.

Once the music was finished and we were heading back inland towards Salcott and yet another sewage work, the knowledge of over four miles of road walking with no pavement kept creeping back into my head. Basically, the ECP has a significant gap between Salcott and Norfolk. Most of the time this is not problematic as there are already well-trodden coastal paths or promenades. However, here in this part of Essex, the road is not even very close to the edge of the marsh. Matt had found proposals for the missing section between Salcott and Mersea online and it was clear that if we chose to trespass there would be significant scrambling involved as a number of marshy channels currently have no crossing points. As Barbara is not a fan of scrambling at the best of times and my ankle is not 100%, the road seemed the only option. I knew that Ruth had done it many years ago so it was doable, but unpleasant. Barbara had already voted for missing it out on the basis that it wasn’t the real path and argued that with my new found emphasis on radical acceptance I needed to nurture my ‘gap’ tolerance. With all this in mind we entered the village of Salcott, spotting the final ECP sign for many a mile. Reading Ken Warpole’s 2005 sensitive account of Essex later that evening, it is clear that there has been controversy over this small section of the coast for many years: “The realignment of the sea wall at Abbott’s Hall Farm was a high risk strategy which paid off, despite reservations amongst local fishermen and farmers, some of which still remain.” I’d imagine that some of these reservations are why the proposed ECP has not made it past the planning stage.

We stopped for a snack at St Mary the Virgin as we spied a handy bench and while sitting there a couple of women entered the churchyard with large bouquets of flowers. They asked us if we were walking far and when we explained they were very apologetic about their non-section of the ECP. They also looked aghast when I said I might still walk the road to Mersea. With friendly offers of cups of tea and inviting us to write our blog address in their visitors book, they disappeared inside to get on with preparing for an event. Their cautionary words about the speed and danger of the road made me relent and Barbara phoned Matt to meet us at the end of the footpath/start of the road. We left without leaving our details – we’re really not very good at publicising the blog!

Crossed the Salcott Creek

and took the third footpath on the left up a field and onto a layby where Matt appeared a couple of minutes later.

Stayed at the Peldon Rose which Matt discovered (you will have worked out by now that Matt is very good at discovering information!) was an old smuggling inn and that the pond outside was where all the goods used to be stashed. Now there are just a couple of fake scare herons and some lovely willows.

But out of my window there was a lovely sunset.

Miles walked: 9.5

Since the beginning: 1260.9

Warpole, K. & Orton, J. (2005) 350 Miles: An Essex journey.

Warpole, K. (2010) East of Eden in Evans & Robson (eds) Towards Re-enchantment: Place and its Meanings. London: Artevents.