Tollesbury

Tollesbury is where Essex runs out of land and starts talking about boats. Edwardian promoters ran a railway out to a pier here and promised bungalows and a yacht station; the pier gave up in 1921, the trains followed thirty years later, and the village carried on exactly as before, which is its standard response to anyone with a plan. By the church wall stands the old wooden lock-up where drunks slept it off back when six pubs kept it in business. It has been listed since 1959, making it the best-preserved hangover in Essex.