uktravel – Staring At The Sea – Tales From the British Coast

Literary Essex – 3 Essex Coast Walks To Send Your Imagination Wild

The Essex I know isn’t the world of TOWIE. Essex is wild, exposed coastline. It’s flat, endless salt marshes. It’s beaches dotted with pill boxes that have crashed dramatically from the cliffs. It’s witch-hunts, smugglers and Saxon Kings.

Start your own discovery of Essex with these three locations…

Hag Stones – Magic from the Coastline

Known across the British isles and Northern Europe as hag stones, witch stones, adder stones. It’s easy to see why our ancestors were perplexed by how hag stones could have formed naturally, and instead linked them to the involvement of the supernatural.

Find out what the rationale for their magic is, what they were used for and where to find them…

Secret Islands – Spotlight on Orford Ness, Suffolk

Formerly owned by the Ministry of Defence and used to test atomic weapons during the Cold War, Orford Ness is still a strange and secretive place whose ruined military buildings feel almost post-apocalyptic. What the site was actually used for was classified until the 1980s under the Official Secrets Act. I’m calling for a British remake of ‘Stranger Things’ set here!
Today you can visit the Ness and walk around this fascinating piece of living history…