Essex Days Out

A trip to Coggeshall and then the little village of Stisted is a very pleasant way to spend a summer afternoon.
Coggeshall is a large village between Colchester and Braintree. It’s easily reached from the A120 – in fact the road used to go through the village – but thankfully a by-pass was built and the village is now a peaceful place to explore.

In the middle of Coggeshall is a very distinctive wooden clock tower which complements the many timber framed buildings in the village. Many of these buildings date from the 16th and 17th centuries when Coggeshall was a wealthy industrial centre. It’s wealth came from the wool trade – which was of great importance across the whole of East Anglia.

On Thursday’s a small market is held. The emphasis is on food – amongst the stalls was one selling cheese, a fruit stall a sweet stall and a bread stall – the bread stall also visits Colchester market on Fridays.

The National Trust has two properties in Coggeshall – Grange Barn and Paycocke’s. On this trip I went to Paycocke’s. It’s an excellent example of a 16h century merchant’s house. Outside there’s a tranquil garden which in July is full of the scent of lavender. The church of St Peter ad Vinicula also reflects the wealth of the wool trade and I plan to visit it on a future trip to the village.

The small village of Stisted is a couple of miles up the A120 on the way to Braintree. It’s signposted on the right hand side just after Bradwell. I particularly wanted to visit it after reading Andrew Motion’s memoir “In the Blood” in which he writes very movingly about his childhood  in Stisted in the 1960′s. Andrew’s descriptions of the Essex countryside in summer and winter were very evocative and I wanted to se the places he wrote about for myself. In the short time I spent in the village I wasn’t disappointed. I sat under a tree by the village sign for my lunch and watched the world go by. I didn’t have the time to explore the village properly, but I plan to go back very soon to visit the church and  walk around the lanes and the fields to discover the scenes that Andrew described so well.

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