Paglesham Eastend, Churchend, Creek, Pool and River Roach

Paglesham Eastend's sister village is Paglesham Churchend. Here, St Peter's — the epitome of a quiet country church — nestles among trees. There was a church on this site before the Norman Conquest, although the present one is mostly 15th-century. The chancel floor is paved with headstones brought in from the churchyard; one dating from 1734 has the inscription: "Short was my time, the longer my rest. God took me hence, for why he saw it best".

Next to the church is Church Hall, a Georgian building that is now a farm. The walk continues through the village with its charming white weatherboard houses and past the Punch Bowl public house, which is over 500 years old.

From Paglesham Churchend, the route goes across fields intersected by drainage ditches to the seawall that borders Paglesham Creek. The creek is a salt marsh, the home of salt-loving flowers such as sea lavender and sea purslane.

The cries of seabirds are the only sounds in this quiet landscape. There are views back towards the tower of St Peter's Church and across to Wallasea Island and Burnham-on-Crouch, with little else but fields under a vast open sky.

The walk meanders slowly along the creek as it opens out into Paglesham Pool, and then joins the River Roach. Just before you reach a busy boatyard, there are oyster beds, carefully fenced off from the river and the path. This is all that remains of the oyster beds that 2,000 years ago were famous as far away as Rome.

The severe winter of 1963 nearly destroyed the local oyster industry, but now these beds are productive again, and oysters are available locally in the Punch Bowl and the Plough and Sail between September and April.

Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.