Places to explore in EssexEngland · East of England

Grand Jacobean palace in Capability Brown parkland.

Largest Norman keep, built on a Roman temple.

Tidal Essex island reached by the Strood causeway, with West Mersea's oysters and beach huts and Cudmore Grove country park

17 km²

A 1932 seafront lido in Brightlingsea, the last in Essex, rescued and run by volunteers since 2018.

Norman church said to hold King Harold's grave.

Two vast medieval timber barns built by the Knights Templar near Braintree, among the oldest in Europe, with a walled Tudor garden.

A vast Cold War government bunker hidden beneath an ordinary Essex bungalow, reached down a long tunnel and now a museum.

A reconstructed Norman motte-and-bailey castle and Domesday village at Stansted Mountfitchet, roamed by deer and geese.

The longest pleasure pier in the world, stretching 1.3 miles into the Thames Estuary with its own little railway to the end.

The most complete surviving First World War aerodrome in Europe, its grass field ringed by original 1916 buildings near Maldon.

A no-frills West Mersea seafood shack famous for its oysters and platters, where diners bring their own bread and wine.

A crumbling clay headland at Walton with fossil-stuffed cliffs, sweeping views over the backwaters and a landmark tower behind.