‘At Hadleigh there is a ruin of a castle which from its situation is a really fine place – it commands a view of the Kent hills, the Nore and North Foreland & looking many miles to sea’
(letter of 3 July 1814; in R.B. Beckett, ed., John Constable’s Correspondence, II, Ipswich 1964, p.127). (Source: www.tate.org.uk)
My partner came to visit at the weekend so there was the opportunity to explore the area further outside the focus of the work I’ve been doing.
I’d been wanting to take a walk up to Hadleigh Castle, which has been a very prominent feature in the distance on some of the runs I’ve done. In ruins since at least the 16th century, the castle was doomed to ruin from the start, due its being built on unstable clay. Built in the early 13th century, by Hubert de Brugh, who had been given the land by King John, there were already problems in 1274, when the castle was said to be ‘badly built and decayed’. It was renovated and repaired extensively in the 14th century, during the reign of Edward III, but lack of interest in its upkeep and subsequent land slips led to the movement of the south wall and caused the collapse of most of the north-east tower. It is now an English heritage site that is free to visit.
Hadleigh Castle was the subject of a number of sketches made by Constable, in preparation for a six-foot painting now in the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art. The Tate Gallery has a full-size sketch in its collection painted between 1828-9, which can be seen here, along with a summary, display caption and catalogue entry.
After a great late full English breakfast in Leigh on Sea, we wandered through the old town and up beyond the train station, where I had seen there is a footpath that leads to the castle. A bit of confusion over which footpath to take led to a slight detour over Leigh Marine Parade, but was worth it for the view over the Estuary. We managed to find the correct path eventually, that led us across a ridge and some muddy fields and up a hill to the castle. The start of this stretch of good weather and the fact it was the weekend brought out a number of people, so it was difficult to capture an image of the castle without anyone in it, but it’s great that this is an open and free space that anyone can enjoy.
We continued up the hill to Hadleigh Farm, a former working country colony established by William Booth and run by the Salvation Army. The scheme offered training and employment to ‘disadvantaged’ people: “to give employment (and food and lodgings in return for his labour) to any man who is willing to work, irrespective of nationality or creed.” The estate was involved in looking after refugees and those fleeing persecution prior to the outbreak of WWII. Today it continues to be a working farm with a Rare Breed Centre and Tea Room run by the Salvation Army and since 1990 operates as The Hadleigh Training Centre ‘work[ing] with local authorities to train people with special educational needs in contemporary subjects such as IT skills, carpentry, and life skills’. (Source: https://www.hadleighfarm.org.uk)
A welcome cup of tea and ice-cream at the Tea Room and a look at the animals at the Rare Breed Centre and we continued on our way to find the path back down that would lead us across the railway crossing and onto the footpath from Benfleet, opposite Two Tree island, that would lead us back to Leigh and then to Chalkwell Hall. The descent was a beautiful excursion across a typical English landscape and vista of green fields and blossoming trees.
After a little confusion, we found the field we should cross to get to the railway crossing. Despite the warm, sunny weather it remained waterlogged in large patches and although we managed to avoid the worst of it, we couldn’t avoid the huge pool immediately in front of the crossing. I managed to persuade my partner to give me a ‘piggy back’ across, as I’m not tall and he was already up to his knees in water. It was worth it to show him the route back along the path, which I had previously encountered on some training and reconnaissance runs. It was still a few miles before we reached Leigh, where we stopped for a much needed drink at the Mayflower pub and a couple more to get back to Chalkwell Hall. In all, we worked out we must have walked about 8 miles and that was after me doing a 6 mile run in the morning beforehand! The excursion was well-rewarded by a fantastic Italian evening meal at La Sirena in Leigh.
