Frinton-on-Sea

This was my first visit to Frinton since childhood and I headed straight to the beach. I lay my towel by a groyne and propped my Agatha Christie book in the sand. Groups of lads arrived around midday, drinking Red Bull and playing keepy-uppy. Plastic footballs soon homed-in on me [“sorry mate”] and once the barbecues began to fire up, I surrendered and took my pinking limbs into town.

A tiny low church sat on the headland, the smallest in Essex and the first-built of many in the town. At the back stood a small remembrance garden cloaked in shadow and buzzing with bumble bees; a sunken haven of plaques on benches and respite from the May sunshine.

Frinton was the scene of an interesting modernist architectural experiment in the 1930s. It was never fully realized and so the remaining houses stand out amid the bungalows and bricks. Its legacy is a microcosm of the English attitude to housing. Some owners have bought-in to the wider idea, adding art-deco furnishings and striking ornaments. Others seem to have reacted against the whole movement, attaching porches and slate roofs. Why buy a striking white-cube box and then plonk a pitched roof on top? Why not just buy a house with a pitched roof?

Frinton's chip shop & pub are no longer seen as proof of the apocalypse. I stopped at a cafe promoting herbal teas and asked what they had. “Calamine” said the young waitress but luckily it turned out to be Camomile.

The Vineyards of Essex

“What’s an Essex girl’s favourite wine? “I wanna go Lakeside.”

Hmm, doesn’t really work written down. It would be even less funny if the punchline was “Colchester Rose” or “Ruby Royale from Maldon”, yet this most derided of counties does indeed make its own wine.

Carters Vineyard hides in a fold in the Boxted hills, just shy of Constable’s canvas. This is the Essex of flint churches with wooden spires. Rabbits jumped on the grass verges and the golden glare of rapeseed covered the spring countryside The oh-no words “Alternative Energy Centre” were inscribed beneath the vineyard sign but it just referred to a wind turbine which, incredibly, powered the whole operation. Another centre of energy in the form of a black labrador bounded at us, barking and protective. Her name was Inca and after initial suspicion, we parted the best of friends.

The wine labels tell of bygone Colchester; Queen Boudicca and Old King Coel. The Romans are thought to have grown vines close by and Boudicca’s unfortunate reinvention as the first Essex girl is based more on her fierce independence than her cruelty and bloodlust. At least I hope so. We bought a dry white and a rose, but passed on the sloe gin and fruity vodka.

Second stop was New Hall Vineyard, just south of Maldon and a much larger business than Carters. We bought a red which later went down well with an episode of Midsomer Murders. In Maldon we stopped for lunch at a pub in the High Street. A bronze relief in the beer garden told of Edward Bright, an 18th century local man who weighed 44 stones. In the bank holiday sunshine big shirtless blokes drank pints of lager. We ordered the lightest food on the menu.