Chelmsford, High Street 1892

Photo ref: 31508

More about this scene

accents become more East Anglian than Estuarine. Much of the county is still largely agricultural. Along the rivers and the shoreline, there are still miles of sparsely-inhabited wilderness. Lots of Essex people can tell tales about getting lost on the marshes. It is possible, too, to be a few hundred yards from the edge of an Essex town, and yet ostensibly be in the middle of the countryside. This is not the Essex of the public consciousness. It is always foolhardy to generalise about a region or country, but it is often the most garish and colourful aspects of a place that grab the outsider's imagination. Since the 1980s, of course, Essex natives have had to listen to oft-repeated witticisms about 'Essex man' and 'Essex girls'. Preconceptions are difficult things to overturn. Take the hills, for example. Steep gradients are not something that many people would connect with Essex. Yet the north of the county is decidedly rolling, and a brisk walk up Halstead High Street or Maldon's Market Hill has been known to change the mind of many a disbeliever.

An extract from Essex - A Second Selection Photographic Memories.