The Other Side of Essex | Adventure on Your Doorstep (Part 1)
Good morning from essex it's eight a.m and monica and i headed off at seven in the morning for a two-day tour specifically of the district of malden because adventure is all around and this is our neighboring county here and somewhere that we often overlook so we're going to spend two days seeing what adventure can be found right on our doorstep so we're going to head off for a little walk on the water side before we grab some breakfast the gear for the day or at least the setup for the day because it's a two-day trip we've got because you never know even though this is the warmest and i think also definitely the driest county or the driest area in the whole of the uk but you never know waterproofs in the bag there monica's pannier there in theory my pannier here although monica has taken some of that so in reality that's about my level of gear but we've got everything we need here sat nav set up you'll notice the new mirrors and everything on the bike so this is a beautiful touring setup and this actually acts as a bit of a backrest for monica so we will be touring the district of malden in beautiful comfort ah it's amazing to think that this is just 40 miles away from greenwich in london we rode here in peak russia at 8 30 and in the past 20 minutes i think we went past six cars it's so quiet and peaceful it feels so far removed from anything to do with london it's incredible the second you turn off the motorway all of the madness of the traffic stops around here this is tollesbury wick nature reserve and apparently it's all fresh water marshes and they are sustainably grazed and managed by and we are looking for them a flock of a flock of ponies apparently um kettle and also grazing sheep manage and sustain all of this fresh water grazing monica's desperate to see a pony we've seen some cows that she hasn't had much interest in but we have our eyes out for the ponies and that that is a red lighthouse boat right over there apparently that's a landmark a lot of people like to get a picture of her but it's lovely it's so peaceful over here foreign so this is the lock tip tree tea room and it's in a special location from a recent interest of mine see outside there i don't know if you can see it monica that tiny little island there is north the island population one the only person that lives there is the warden that looks after it and if you want to go and visit it you can only do so by permission of the warden who's part of the national trust fun fact about that in 991 the viking king olaf of norway was camped out there just before he made the final decision to attack on the famous battle of malden just a couple of miles from here right there on that tiny little island what a place and because this is a tip tree tea room you'll notice everything even the ketchup even the ketchup is from tiptree and i remember this so well because this is a very famous very proud essex company you can see that the sign hasn't changed in ages i remember because my grandparents they are from essex they lived in chelmsford and every time we'd have tip tree jam so everything that i can see everything all of the jams laid out there even in the lose posters of all of the old tip tree posters in there but lovely stuff great service and this exact place here it's an old ship's chandler where they used to sell goods and parts for ships and stuff and it's been turned into a cafe so much character i love places like this we've just had a delicious lunch completely full now and look what we just stumbled across now i don't want to pretend and act like i know this off the top of my head i had to do a check on this volvo 240 from the year 1966 the glorious just before the uk would have won the world cup so this car was made before we'd ever won the football world cup it's actually an amazingly good condition with a color-coded roof rack i don't know if i've ever seen one of these in the uk on the road i mean this isn't technically on the road but to see one of these out and about the uk so with a wooden roof rack that's proper slice of wood on the roof rack hope this goes on the road soon i think it's last mot last time it's on the road three years ago fingers crossed it gets back no i've just seen this side okay it's more rusty on this side so i take back amazing condition but you can still see the beauty of it so the haybridge basin population just 700 because of the isolated nature of the location it built up a reputation of lawlessness over the years apparently so there'll be different ships of different nationalities coming through and apparently they'd often get into fights or do borderline illegal things around here but it's such a nice setting with the old lock house there which is about 180 years old beautiful old pub right there and look at the size of the tiny houses just to the left of it as well lovely setting it is brisk today i don't know how the microphone is but because i don't have hair to tell if it's windy oh it's windy today it's almost june and you need a jacket today definitely you can feel that wind pounding in but it's a lovely setting and very very well kept if i could start the story from the end then maybe keeps telling me heaven and hell now tell me this is the barge tea rooms in malden and it's a boat so we're looking out onto the river there and i think i've only ever had two afternoon teas in my life it's so british and i've only ever done it twice in my life and this specific tea room has been voted one of the best in the uk it's a 1933 boat and everything here is homemade actually downstairs on the boat so dan says they bake the brownies the cakes they even hand make the hummus there so everything you see here is handmade that is so rare to find all the cakes they're handmade the stuff lovely i'll take you downstairs in a bit because you wouldn't expect to see what you see downstairs so i'll take you down there after that this has a it's a high quality proper cream tea i'll start with that and look at this look at the size of that sandwich that was delicious here goes oh probably quite rudely so you don't want to see this this will be a challenge i stupidly had a cake about five minutes ago so we need to finish this it looks that's a lot of food there but i think we'll cope so bottom to top and then scones to finish it off wish us luck i had to come down and show you what it's like on the bottom deck of the barge because it opens up way bigger than i thought i'll flip the camera and show you so on the left we've got the kitchen area and i think just through there is where they actually bake all of the cakes make all of the food and everything like that i think there may be a sleeping area through there although i think that's private however this area is the seating area on the lower part of the boat with almost a library-style place at the back five seats little snug area with a carpet and books all the way around with these little portholes oh look at that that is brilliant leading out onto the river lots of different sailing lots of different sailing and boating books and old pictures i'm guessing these are old pictures of malden and the local area and then all looking out there onto the seating area what a little find what a place and see if i can see how low we are actually here there we go to give you some idea i can't i don't know how that's possible to oh to eat all of that i had half of it and i had half of monikers but i can't move it's like a challenge to be able to finish it that is an unbelievably good cream tea but it's so filling it's so filling honestly i felt guilty because the quality is so high i couldn't leave it but it's a struggle those last two scums okay we're gonna have a walk now around malden maybe in a minute or two but that that's a must barge to him malden is fascinating for two reasons number one it's one of essex's oldest recorded towns and secondly it's the scene of a very famous viking battle because in 991 on north the island just over there there was an army of two to four thousand vikings looking to take over here malden so the viking king came over from northea island and started discussions with eldermen birtnuth and he said to alderman bertneth if you give us a whole load of silver we won't attack and there'll be no bloodshed at all alderman bertnoth who is in charge of the army here at malden said to them absolutely not and bertneth was so confident that they could win the battle against the vikings that he said to the vikings come over come over from northea island we will actually let you cross the water into malden we'll wait for you to get ready and then the battle will start on dry land so bertnoth and his army which were largely made up of farmers waited for them politely and patiently let them come over the battle ensued it was a bloody battle in the end the english soldiers started fleeing on horseback and running away the vikings won and at the end of the battle alderman bertnoff's body was found with his head cut off um welcome to the limes hotel in malden just off the high street this is a 17th century grade two listed hotel and it's it's only about a five minute walk or so from where we just were having cream tea on the barge it's really really beautiful actually monica and i spent about five minutes just looking at how nice it was every single inch of this place has been stunningly refurbished four poster bed all of these old exposed beams with a mixture of a few new beams in the middle there i guess where they couldn't quite save them so very very nicely done space with monica you've always wanted to run those in a hotel room haven't you it's brilliant and they've created here love it huge old chester dwarves this area is the ensuite and inside the ensuite they chose and i'm so glad they chose not to put a roof on it so you can see straight up as well that's some seriously nice interior design in there and on top of that i can just see it through the the bed window there there is a proper authentic italian restaurant right downstairs so we're going to be having our dinner directly downstairs but this is a brilliant place stunning old building perfectly situated you've got everything you need there pizzeria downstairs beautiful old building here and the malden waterfront five minutes away we've been relaxing probably for about two hours and we've got our reservation downstairs for eight o'clock italian restaurant downstairs and i don't need to ask if it is perfect thank you enough yes if it's run by italians because it's called luigi's and the contact detail for this the limes hotel is giovanni so my guess is the hotel and the restaurant downstairs all italian run we've been downstairs and met them they're a lovely bunch so i can see down says it's actually surprisingly busy it's a wednesday evening now and that is bustling downstairs in a hotel or in the restaurant so we're going to go downstairs we had to actually book a table for 8 o'clock because it was getting so busy i think i'll grab a pizza for me today it's been nothing but pastries and pizza but you'll had a treat every so often thank you so what's that this is delicious i think it's the serrano oh i should say actually for the rooms they range in price i think something like 100 to this 160 pounds this is the the premium most expensive room in the whole hotel so this is what you get for 160 pounds that's delicious this runner let's go this is such a huge surprise this is a beautiful italian restaurant that's a room right there surrounded by the black wood and it looks directly out onto this just stunningly designed courtyard with a restaurant area there restaurant inside there and then this open courtyard here with they've got everything a bit of rosemary here they've got a vespa there the most perfect menu really really knowledgeable stuff this is the bolognese and that is a risotto eye fungi with mushrooms everything is on point and i think it's all owned i think i said earlier but it's all owned by the same family and i think they took over this running in 2019 they've done such a good job of it oh actually before i tuck it it's about talking let's wrap it up there the weather has got better and better as today's gone on it's actually a lovely evening now so fingers crossed tomorrow we're going to get blue sky thank you so much for coming on please give the video a like subscribe to the channel and i'm going to tuck in see you tomorrow you
2022-05-31 10:09
