Welcome to B-List Britain, a new and exclusive Metro Travel series with Ben Aitken, the author of the book Shitty Breaks. Ben argues it’s time to ditch the UK’s hotspots and explore unsung cities instead. This week, he’s in charming Chelmsford…
I can’t say I knew much about the historic capital of Essex before I rolled up there.
I knew it had a river called the Chelm that might require fording.
I knew it was in about thirty miles northeast of London.
And I knew it was awarded city status in 2012, mostly because Mo Farah had just won a gold medal and the Queen thought, Ah, sod it. Why not?
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Fresh off the train, I studied a map outside the station. Many of the names on display – Maltese Road, Swiss Avenue, Upper Roman Road – suggested that I could be in for quite an exotic afternoon.
A larger map of the region, meanwhile, revealed such places as Bocking, Foulness, Messing, Fobbing, Mucking and Fingringhoe, which hinted at a county that knew what to do of an evening.
There was a good-looking pub across the street, so I nipped over for a look. The Brewhouse & Kitchen occupies a former Quaker meeting house.
Anne Knight – I gleaned from a commemorative plaque – was born and raised in the property. Anne was a proper Essex girl, from what I could tell.
She was dedicated to the abolition of slavery, the promotion of universal suffrage, and the advance of feminism – and that was all before lunch.
When Anne moved to France at the age of 72, it wasn’t to put her feet up, but rather to take part in that country’s revolution. Yikes.
B-List Britain: Cities that deserve your attention
I scored a slice of pizza from a family-owned joint called Moto, which I scoffed on Tindal Square, opposite Shire Hall.
Despite its grand appearance, Shire Hall was the site of many a miscarriage of justice, not least in the 1600s, when infamous witch hunter Matthew Hopkins got into the habit of rounding up anyone he felt was a tiny bit witchy and effecting their execution.
The court at Chelmsford trialled more witches than anywhere else in the country. Nothing wrong with a strong judicial instinct.
At the bottom of Chelmsford’s High Street is a graceful stone bridge that spans the River Can.
Here I spotted a lad doing an odd kind of fishing – magnet fishing. With his spare time, Lewis Bright dangles his unusual rod in the rivers of Chelmsford in pursuit of… well, anything magnetic, I guess.
Lewis has brought up trollies, bikes, unexploded bombs and a pair of tights full of money. Lewis either sells his catch to scrap metal dealers or attempts to get the items back to their rightful owner.
Trying to do that with the tights must have proved an unusual errand. The lad has got 100k social media followers. Look him up. He might have your keys.
The ice rink in Chelmsford cannot be destroyed or repurposed under any circumstances because it is a backup morgue in the event of an emergency. I hadn’t been ice-skating for several decades, and not because I’m the sort of person who likes to deny themselves pleasure.
The lady who issued me my skates told me to keep my weight above my feet (as opposed to below them?) and to shuffle along like a penguin, but I struggled to do either.
So poor was my progress that I soon attracted the attention of a steward. ‘Mate. If you can’t skate, why don’t you stop trying to film yourself and just concentrate on what you’re doing?’
Back in trainers, I recalibrated at Driink Coffee Club, a young indie outlet where the beans are roasted in-house and the espresso is extracted with a rather splendid machine called La Marzocco Leva X, which was probably fished out of the river by Lewis.
After checking into The County Hotel, I took a bus out to The Galvin Green Man, a pub that dates to the fourteenth century and was voted best public house in Essex a couple of years ago.
I was here for the Michelin Bib Gourmand menu, a ridiculous name for something that, in short, is really rather simple: Michelin-level grub for a decent price — in this case, three courses for £30.
Having seen off my seasonal mushrooms and whipped local cheese, I proceeded to the New Hall wine estate, where I enjoyed a self-guided walk through the vines and stuck my nose in a decent number of samples.
New Hall puts on several open days throughout the spring and summer, while the cellar door is open all year round for tastings and chit chat.
Back in town, I had a pint of something local at Voodoo Keller (which is a taproom of the Chelmsford Brew Co), before settling down at a brilliant place called Hot Box, where a Nick Drake album played softly, punters played chess, and the barman levied a £2 fine each time someone talked about politics.
(Undaunted, one lady spent a tenner making the case for electoral reform.)
After breakfasting the next morning at a stellar indie called Fete (beef short rib benedict, anyone?), I proceeded to the Chelmsford Museum, where I learned a lot about an Italian immigrant called Guglielmo Marconi, who pitched up from Bologna in the late nineteenth century to transform the world with wireless telegraphy.
Within a few years of his arrival, Marconi had a factory on New Street in Chelmsford, where all the gear necessary for effective wireless communication was produced.
When the BBC first broadcast from London in 1922, it did so from Marconi House, which speaks volumes.
Another local legend who was involved in progressive messaging, and is well-stocked in the museum, is the artist Grayson Perry.
Of the Perry pieces on show at the museum, I liked his cultural map of England the most, which, instead of being marked with towns and motorways and boundaries and rivers, was dotted with people and things and programmes and bands, like Alan Bennett and Victoria Wood, like David Bowie and Antiques Roadshow, like Cheddar and Panto and Curry and Pret.
The artwork makes a good point about identity, I feel. It suggests that if you want to know an individual, or get closer to knowing them, ask not where they’re from but what they value, not where they were born but what they treasure.
Strolling back to the station – having had a cracking weekend in one of the UK’s least visited cities – it occurred to me that there’s been no better time to give the likes of Belfast and Edinburgh a breather and travel in the ‘wrong’ direction instead.
You’ll find epic history, cracking restaurants, quirky accommodation, and plenty of ways to keep yourself amused. What’s more, you’ll return from your sojourn with spare dosh in your pocket.
Come on. I know you’ve been thinking about it. Go on a flipping sh*tty break.
Ben Aitken is the author of Shitty Breaks: A Celebration of Unsung Cities.
