Essex ([New ed.])

Essex is one the largest counties of England, stretching from the suburban fringes of East London to the fishing and sailing ports of Harwich and Maldon and the famous seaside resorts of Clacton, Frinton and Southend.

Its buildings are appropriately varied, encompassing rich Roman survivals at Colchester, powerful Norman architecture at Castle Hedingham and Waltham Abbey and the remains of major Tudor and Jacobean country houses such as Layer Marney Tower and the prodigious mansion at Audley End.

Besides these highlights, Essex is first and foremost a county famed for its timber buildings, from the eleventh-century church at Greensted to the early and mighty barns at Cressing Temple, and everywhere visible in the wealth of timber-framed medieval houses in its scattered villages and market towns such as Saffron Walden and Coggeshall.

Later periods have also made their contribution, from Georgian town houses to Victorian and Edwardian industrial and civic buildings, and from important exemplars of early Modern Movement architecture to the planned New Towns at Basildon and Harlow.

Such diversity continues into the present with the major monument of High Tech at Stansted Airport.