Other sights in EssexEssex, England

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.

Two classical towers Robert Adam added in 1776 to either end of Mistley's Georgian church, left standing when the nave came down around 1870.

Aisled oak barn of the mid-1400s at Widdington, among the finest medieval barns in the east of England, under a crown-post roof.