Walking in Essex

Walk 14

The Koko Thai restaurant at the start is now a pub again, and has reverted to the name Green Man.

Walk 19

pp 113-4. Footpaths between the footbridge and Little Bendysh Wood have been tweaked, to the mutual benefit of both walker and landowner. After you have crossed the footbridge, don't switch sides of the hedgerow in 150 metres, but keep it on your left. After a sharp left turn, go through a gap, soon passing the pond. The 'easier option' in brackets on p114 is now legal and recommended.

Map: (1:25k, OS haven't got round to updating 1:50k yet!)

Walk 1 The Naze Peninsula

p28: There is now also an Essex Wildlife Trust visitor centre and café on the peninsula.

p30: The information board is just past the old café, not the visitor centre.

Walk 2 Mersea Island

p33 last paragraph: The permissive path is now the official right-of-way. However, the section from just west of Maydays Farm to The Strood is not (as at September 2024) in good condition. The path is often rutted, and grass lays across the path, making for a slippery surface. Care needs to be taken, especially after a little kink in the path to go through trees and cross a creek, at TM 021 151.

Walk 11 Danbury

p74 The car park is now called the Woods car park. The white-topped posts at the kissing gate have disappeared, instead keep fencing on your right to a sheep pen and then turn left on a path that veers right, until the posts appear.

p78 The black arrows of the nature trail have now mostly disappeared, to be replaced by orange waymarkers with different numbering. Ignore the waymarker at board number 3, but start following them when you turn right onto the bridleway, as far as the big signboard about Danbury Ridge.

Walk 12 Moreton and the Matchings

p81 The Stort Valley Way waymarkers after Magdalen Laver church have disappeared. After you leave the church and cross the earth bridge, turn left. After a footbridge, turn left again, and when you reach a minor road, turn left onto it.

p84 After you go through the gap and veer half-left, head towards a house. Cross a ditch to its left, then turn right across grass to the gate that leads to the road.

Walk 17 Great Chesterford and Saffron Walden

p105 The coppiced wood has been harvested and new saplings planted. After leaving Littlebury Green, take the bridleway straight ahead and veer right onto the concrete track.

Walk 21 Finchingfield and Great Bardfield

p124: The 'high conifer hedge' is now a fence, and the broad grass track that brings you to Watermill Cottage is now gravelled. The grassy bank leading to Finchingfield churchyard is now very severely overgrown; instead, go along a lane for a few metres, and then turn left to the churchyard.

Essex Way Stage 2 Epping to Ongar

p154 There is now just one boardwalk as you enter the reserve.

p155 The boardwalk before the M11 is now a gravelled path. After Toot Hill, much Essex Way signage has disappeared. Replace the two sentences after Weald Lodge as follows: Turn right after ‘The Cottage’, then in 50 metres cross a footbridge. Two more footbridges bring you to a large field. About half way along, veer left onto a hedged path. After an isolated house, turn left through a kissing gate. A fenced path leads to another kissing gate. Through it, turn right, and soon cross a minor road onto another path.

Walk 7 Orsett Fen

Page 61 The track in the centre of a narrow field has been ploughed up. Keep a ditch on your left for about 100 metres and then cross the field to the earth bridge.

Walk 10 Mill Green and Writtle Forest

Page 70 The Viper pub, near the finish, has re-opened. To reach it, stay on the track mentioned at the start of the last paragraph on page 72.

Walk 16 Arkesden, Chrishall and Elmdon

Page 100 Leaving Chrishall, the path is bordered by the new planting of Jubilee Wood. Just beyond, keep a new ditch on your left.

Walk 22 Castle Hedingham and Hull's Mill

There is now a second tea room in the village, Violet's.

Page 125 There are two new gates, the first in the dip beneath the farm, the second to its left; go through both.

Page 126 Instead of turning left after the solitary house, there is now a permissive path which avoids some rather scruffy ground. Continue on the track for about 200 metres after the house and turn left onto it. After a right turn and then a left turn, it heads gently downhill to an earth bridge. Cross it, and rejoin the route, taking a footbridge leading into trees. Note also that the steps after the fox-proof enclosure have now disappeared and there is a simple grassy slope instead.

Great Maplestead church is open during daylight hours. Visitors can use its kitchen for tea and coffee and there is a toilet too. Leave the church from the bench at the back of the churchyard.

Page 127 There are two footbridges in the willow plantation; take the second. In the parkland, the path is signed by the headland and no longer crosses to the water trough.

Page 129 From Alderford Mill, there is now a permissive path which keeps to the west bank of the Colne. It starts at a bench behind the mill and is easy to follow, just keep the houses of Sible Hedingham on your left. It finishes at a road bridge over the Colne; cross it and continue on the road to Castle Hedingham.