writing
William Smith, basket maker
Thursday 28 July 2022
We have gone too long without the beautiful writing of Anne Boileau, so here’s a delightful piece to lighten our summer spirits… Delving into Trevor Disley’s fascinating book of old photographs of Coggeshall, I discover William Smith, basket maker, who supplied our town with all manner of baskets from his workshop in West Street. Before […] Read more >
Sowing the Seeds of Hope
Thursday 9 December 2021
Writer Anne Boileau relates the wholly uplifting tale of a rewilding project in north Essex Alex Stevenson lived in Coggeshall until recently. But now she has revealed herself as an Essex Isabella Tree. A landscape architect and award-winning garden designer, she helped draw up the Coggeshall Neighbourhood Plan and recently organised an eco-fair in the […] Read more >
A journey can feel like a pilgrimage
Friday 29 October 2021
Writer Anne Boileau pays homage to the brent goose, an enchanting bird that graces the Essex coastline every winter In October last year I saw them touch down in the stubble field by the Essex Way above Coggeshall. They landed, about 50 of them, and stood very still and silent on their webbed feet, looking […] Read more >
A patchwork of paradise in a very special nature reserve
Tuesday 3 August 2021
Writer Anne Boileau offers an enticing taste of a delightful Essex woodland where “small groups used to meet up for dawn chorus and bacon butties in the spring”. A little chunk of paradise has fallen among us… Between Stisted and Greensted Green lies a small nature reserve known as Belcher’s and Broadfield Woods, or Brookes […] Read more >
A forgotten song
Friday 9 July 2021
Turtle doves were once common summer visitors to Essex. Now we only rarely hear their purring… and writer Anne Boileau misses it “The winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our […] Read more >
Cello Concert with Birdsong
Wednesday 2 September 2020
The writing of Anne Boileau that has graced this website during recent months has both captured the spirit of the age and cast a reflective light of history on where we are today. Here Anne presents Cello Concert with Birdsong, which she describes as “a story with an Essex slant”. “Beatrice Harrison could not have […] Read more >
Too-Goods, Long Richards and Bullocks’ Valley
Monday 27 July 2020
Writer Anne Boileau wrote this delightful piece about ever-changing times in the tiny village of Colne Engaine on the Essex-Suffolk border. “I thought it might get people comparing their own villages and field names,” says Anne. The people who lived in the village of Colne Engaine more than 100 years ago have left us no photographs […] Read more >
Marking time in Coggeshall
Friday 3 July 2020
The Covid-19 lockdown is, it would appear, easing before presumably coming to an end. It has unquestionably been a difficult time – tragically so for many – but there has been light amid the gloom. In this delightful essay, writer Anne Boileau reflects on what lockdown taught us and is thankful for the good people… […] Read more >