The city of Hertfordshire is located on the Greenwich Meridian and has excellent transport links, being close to St Stansted Airport, the London Underground and the River Thames. Tilbury Football Club is coming to life and has been the scene of a number of football matches in recent years, including the recent FA Cup semi-final win over Middlesbrough and the recent victory over Bristol City.
The county was also home to a number of football teams, including the Chieftains of Tilbury Football Club. The defunct teams included the Blackpool Pirates, the London Knights of the Knights and the Hertfordshire Pirates.
As well as rural areas, the county also includes the towns of Southend – on the Thames, Stansted, Tilbury, Shorne, St Pancras and St Albans. The densely populated south borders the city of London with its own Southend Victoria station. It serves London’s Tilbury and S & M Railway, as well as the suburban and Victoria branches.
If you want to experience all the facets of wild Essex, you’d better start from Southend – on the Thames, the county’s most economically stressed high street – and discover some of the country’s most vibrant and dynamic towns and villages. It is difficult to determine where the bay begins and the river ends when you turn the last bend on the Hoo Peninsula and see the town of Tilbury, a small town of just over 1,000 people. For those who want a different side of “wild Essex,” there could be no worse place to visit than the village of St Albans, home to a few hundred people. Sources: 1, 6, 7, 8
If you’re looking for a big commuter town south of the city, Crawley in West Sussex is a good bet for commuters looking for proximity to Gatwick Airport. The Sunshine Coast Line connects the picturesque towns of Wivenhoe and Great Bentley with the bustling city of Brighton and nearby Chelmsford city centre, just a few miles away.
The price of the commuter train is slightly more expensive, but the good transport links mean you can get to London Fenchurch Street in 38 minutes. On the Brighton & Hove Line and commuter trains to and from Gatwick Airport, you can forget London’s Fenchurch Street for a few minutes.
Thurrock Council, together with Kent County Council, subsidises the ferry between Tilbury and Gravesend, which runs on a cross-link between the Thames and the Essex River Estuary. In spring and summer, pedestrian ferries cross the river from the estuaries in Essex and are operated from the pedestrian ferry from Graves End, Kent, to Tilburys Cross.
Essex’s education is largely provided by Thurrock Council, the authority that runs 90% of state secondary schools. Although selective grammar schools exist, there is no evidence that any of the authorities that offer them are comprehensive, although some do.
After all, Writtle University College, on the outskirts of Chelmsford in the village of Writtlesford, is the only agricultural college in Essex. Founded in 1963, the University of Essex is located on the former site of Essex County Hospital in Thurrock, just a few miles from the city centre.