Rainy Days in Essex

I heard a quote recently : “There’s no such thing as bad weather. There’s just weather and your response to it…”

On that basis, if it’s raining check our events listings from the menu at the top of the page, and get a rainprooof jacket and an umbrella out and support your local event organisers! But if you are determined to keep dry, below are a few tips for you for dealing with a rainy day in Essex.

Without children

If you’re willing to brave a little bit of rain then for adults then get in the car and do some antiques shopping. We’ve been to Battlesbridge a couple of times recently – it’s right in the centre of the county, and easy to get to. There are several different areas for antiques hunters, and lots of parking.

There’s a multi-storey centre with four floors of antiques, and a great cafe on the top floor – the dedicated antiques shopper/browser could spend an afternoon in there! If you want to grab some lunch nearby we can recommend The Barge Inn which is set amongst the antiques centres. You could park in the car park of the antique centre about 10 yards from the antique centre, and a quick 50yard dash over the road to the pub, and otherwise be in the dry for a very long shopping session in the antiques centre (with a tea break on their top floor) and have a pub lunch, and spend 4hours with only a few seconds in the rain! More information from the Battlesbridge Antiques Centre website.

Other places for antiques include the Baddow Antiques Centre, and if you are in the west there’s the Debden Antiques Centre. If you are in the north then head over the border into Long Melford where there are two or three big antique warehouses, with ample parking on the streets outside them. And there’s an enormous antiques centre in nearby Clare : you can spend hours in there!

If you like your retail therapy but don’t fancy antiques – there are plenty of shopping centres where you can dodge the rain. Check out our new Shopping Centres in Essex page.

Although it’s wet, why not pop out in the car and visit a couple of garden centres? They’re getting bigger and bigger these days, and more and more of them are under cover and have restaurants and in some cases delicatessens.

Or why not head out to one of the mainstream or independent cinemas across Essex?

Or maybe a drive around some of the villages of Essex? We had a lovely drive around Boxford, Edwardstone and Kersey a while back. And we can also recommend a drive around Thaxted and Finchingfield. And if the weather is a bit iffy, why not drive out for a meal in a countryside pub?

With children

If you’ve got children why not try something active

• tenpin bowling – check our listing of bowling alleys
• swimming – check out our Swimming Pools in Essex listing and maybe try something a little further afield?
• Rollerworld for skating and Quasar in Colchester

There’s the Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker which is out of the rain on account if it being underground!

You could head off to the cinema (maybe try a different one a bit further afield?), or check out children’s activities at places like Colchester Arts Centre or Chelmsford Theatres.

There’s Sea Life Adventure in Southend where the ones the other side of the glass are the ones getting wet!

Colchester Zoo is huge and a lot of it is undercover, and with some waterproofs you won’t get too wet, and if it’s raining it won’t be that busy! Check out the other zoos and petting farms on our listing.

You could go to one of the many excellent museums across the county. Check our Essex Museums page – there will be museums you weren’t aware of. We went to the Combined Military Services Museum in Maldon in 2011 and were hugely impressed – click here to read our article and watch the video we took. You can easily spend a couple of hours in there.

And how is this for a bit of lateral thinking : go to one of the London museums. You can park at your local railway station, and once there you’re undercover on the train, undercover at Liverpool Street, undercover on the tube to South Kensington tube station, and you can get into the Victoria and Albert, the Natural History Museum, or the Science Museum via a long underground tunnel. And you can spend hours in each museum. And remember to get a group ticket if you’re going on a weekend, and check other discounts, as you can get up to London very cheaply on that basis. And there’s that added sense of adventure as you wonder whether Abellio East Anglia is going to get you there (and back) on time.

If none of this takes your fancy and you absolutely insist on staying dry indoors then :

• check the weather forecast for the rest of the day – there may be a couple of hours of sunshine forecast for the evening
• promise yourself that next time it’s not raining, you will get out and about, so that you don’t miss the opportunity when it’s there! Check our events listings for the next couple of months, and pencil some dates into your calendar
• do some planning for the next dry day – have a browse around our site and get some ideas. Plan a walk, or a cycle route
• get a hold of a copy of Essex Monopoly or Chelmsford Monopoly, and enjoy a board game while you think about what you will do next time it’s dry

Do you have any suggestions for what to do on a rainy day in Essex? Suggestions below please.