The story begins aboard a South American liner that has made a scheduled stop at Oporto in Portugal. Dryden (the storyteller) is the second officer and is wanting to go ashore to stretch his legs. Also on board are two passengers; a young English/Portuguese girl, traveling with her elderly Uncle who is South American. Dryden has already noticed the girl and is hoping to get better acquainted with her.

Combining travel writing with a walking guide, Suffolk Coast Walk provides a wonderful insight into this fascinating county and is the companion book to Essex Coast Walk by the same author. Peter Caton explores all 162 miles of Suffolk’s unique coastline, describing the route for fellow walkers, with an engaging narrative that tells of the beauty, history and wildlife of this mysterious and varied coast. The reader is taken up and down Suffolk’s remote creeks and rivers, past sandy beaches and huge expanses of shingle, through nature reserves, seaside resorts and tiny villages. We learn of the county’s abundant wildlife, not just through its famous bird populations but also of equally interesting and less celebrated creatures, and how habitats are managed to balance the needs of nature and mankind. Throughout his journey, Peter uncovers many mysteries and considers the stories behind legends of Anne Boleyn, invading Germans, a half-man half-fish character, UFOs, Crazy Mary and bells tolling beneath the sea. He visits Suffolk’s only island and takes a boat trip to investigate the secret world of Orford Ness. More than 100 colour and black & white photos illustrate the story of the walk and the beauty and atmosphere of county’s remarkable coast. With maps at the start of each chapter, this is a book for those who enjoy a short stroll, a longer ramble or simply wish to follow the coast from the comfort of an armchair.

NOW AN APPLE TV+ SERIES A Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction * Winner of the British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year and overall Book of the Year *A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of The Year * Waterstones Book of the Year * Costa Book Award Finalist “A novel of almost insolent ambition—lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden gate...it’s part ghost story and part natural history lesson, part romance and part feminist parable. I found it so transporting that 48 hours after completing it, I was still resentful to be back home.” —New York Times London, 1893. When Cora Seaborne’s brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was an unhappy one, and she never suited the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space, she leaves the metropolis for coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive eleven-year-old son, Francis, and the boy’s nanny, Martha, her fiercely protective friend. Once there, they hear rumors that after nearly three hundred years, the mythical Essex Serpent, a fearsome creature that once roamed the marshes, has returned. When a young man is mysteriously killed on New Year’s Eve, the community’s dread transforms to terror. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist with no patience for religion or superstition, is immediately enthralled, certain that what locals think is a magical sea beast may be a previously undiscovered species. Eager to investigate, she is introduced to parish vicar William Ransome, who is equally suspicious of the rumors but for different reasons: a man of faith, he is convinced the alarming reports are caused by moral panic, a flight from the correct and righteous path. As Cora and William attempt to discover the truth about the Essex Serpent’s existence, these seeming opposites find themselves inexorably drawn together in an intense relationship that will change both of them in ways entirely unexpected. And as they search for answers, Cora’s London past follows her to the coast, with striking consequences. Told with exquisite grace and intelligence, The Essex Serpent masterfully explores questions of science and religion, skepticism and faith, but it is most of all a celebration of love, and the many different—and surprising—guises it can take.

Written by preservation consultant Pamela W. Fox 'North Shore'

This report describes the unusual diversity of archaeological evidence found at the Stumble, views it within its immediate and regional environmental setting and within the context of the archaeological landscape of the region, a landscape that is becoming better known thanks to recent rescue excavations at nearby Chigborough and Slough House Farms. The intertidal site of the Stumble is named after a mud bank in the Blackwater Estuary 700-800m east of the Neolithic site. The site is fully estuarine, being covered at high tide by some 3m of water, and positioned between 10 and 250m from the seaward edge of the saltmarsh. The occupation phases present: earlier and later Neolithic, Early Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and post-medieval are all well-represented on neighbouring dry land sites so the excavation of the Stumble, in view of the technical problems involved, requires some justification. Primarily, the types of evidence to be found at this site can usually only be found together on inter-tidal or wetland sites. Hence the Neolithic is represented by an intact land surface strewn with occupation debris and peppered by pits of various dimensions. Neither of these things would have survived the millennia of ploughing that have transformed most inland Neolithic habitation sites into little more than lithic scatters. This virtually intact Neolithic site was occupied during the 3rd millennium BC and a little earlier, when sea levels were significantly lower, so there is no preservation of waterlogged wood on the Neolithic site. Nevertheless, the quantity and quality of remaining inorganic remains is sufficient to justify excavation. The later Neolithic record is of a similar 'dry land' site inundated by a gradually rising sea level, but by the Iron Age the archaeological record had become quite different. Occupation debris, sherds and other artefacts are virtually absent, and instead wooden structures, single or multiple posts, brushwood and interwoven wattles remain. Clearly, at this stage of the Holocene marine transgression the locus of settlement had moved inland beyond the tidal fringe and the evidence from the Stumble must therefore represent activity that took place on salt marshes, along tidal creeks or on the mudflats.

"Out on the estuary a slab of land had separated itself from the horizon and was moving closer" Shortlisted for the New Angle Prize 2019 In 2016 Tom Bolton set out on a mission to walk the long, winding coastline of Essex -- from Purfleet on the Thames Estuary to the Suffolk border. Low Country records his probing, hallucinatory journeys along crumbling sea-walls and through retail parks, past abandoned military forts and plotlands. He uncovers an ancient battlefield upstream from a decommissioned nuclear power station, visits England's most deprived community and treks the remote and beautiful Dengie peninsula in search of forgotten stories. In the treacherous mudflats and coastal resorts of England's eastern edge, an alternative vision begins to emerge, shaken by Brexit and the rise of new, populist politics in Britain and America. In this low country of vast horizons, where land and sea are in constant flux, Bolton discovers a hidden history of invasion, resistance and radical thinking. A timely new book from the celebrated author of London's Lost Rivers and Vanished City, Low Country repositions the edgelands of Essex at the political and imaginative heart of England.