Our exploration of the Essex Way continued this weekend as we strode out in Great Leighs.
Now it’s years since I’ve been through Great Leighs. Through, rather than to, you note. Before the fast road opened it was the best way from Chelmsford to Braintree, and in all honesty I’d probably been spending more time looking at the traffic ahead than I had the surroundings.
What a shame. Turns out Great Leighs is very nice. We parked up at the village hall and struck out across the fields, through some woods and a wood yard, along the backs of some cute smallholdings populated by chickens, bantams and guinea pigs and down to the river, which we followed for three or four miles.
We should have followed it further, unfortunately, but got ourselves mixed up (we were eating Creme Eggs at the time and it’s easy to be distracted) and turned right one road too soon, putting ourselves on a long loop up through the centre of our route.
In fairness that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing as we were starting to flag, and it means we can do the other half another time. We did find this dinky spring by the side of the road close to Great Leighs church, on Cole Lane. You can see where it is on Google Maps by following this link.
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