Sunday 07 June 2026, 9.00am – approx 12.30pm (meet at 8.45am)
Heybridge Basin | Maldon | Northey Island

Join Essex-based author of The Cuckoo’s Lea, Michael J. Warren for one of our Radical Islands walks to mark the centenary of the birth of pioneering nature-writer J.A. Baker, author of The Peregrine.

Retracing Baker’s steps, we will explore Northey Island, the site of the Battle of Maldon and erstwhile home of Nobel Peace Prize Winner Norman Angell, to discover what makes this saltmarsh coast so distinctive and inspirational.

Meeting Point: The Bargemasters’ Cabin (next to Daisy Meadow Car Park), CanalSide, Heybridge Basin, CM9 4RR
What 3 Words: Whizzed.Repaying. Shall
End point: Heybridge Basin
Length: 6 miles approx
Duration: Approx 3.5 hours
Terrain: Level, mix of solid and potentially muddy sections depending on the weather

Tickets: £15 / £12 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged)
Box Office: eventbrite.co.uk

Michael J. Warren

Photo of Michael J Warren © Ginny Warren

Michael J. Warren is an author, medievalist and naturalist. He teaches English in Chelmsford, was honorary research fellow at Birkbeck College, chair of the steering group for New Networks for Nature, and is currently a trustee for Curlew Action. Michael curates The Birds and Place Project, a website devoted to collecting and recording the birds of English place names.

The Cuckoo’s Lea: The Forgotten History of Birds and Place

Birds have long inspired our emotional and imaginative connections to physical environments, but where did it all begin?

Hidden in the names of English towns and villages, in copses, fields, lanes and hills, are the ghostly traces of birds conjuring powerful identities for people in ancient landscapes. What are their stories and secrets? How did people encounter birds over a thousand years ago?

In The Cuckoo’s Lea, Michael J. Warren sets out on the trail of these ghosts. Captivated and guided by the secrets of place names, he finds their stories entangled with his own explorations of places through birds all across England. The past is hauntingly and movingly present on timeless marshes where curlews cry, where goshawks are breeding again for the first time in centuries, through silent cuckoo-woods lost under concrete sprawl, in the winter roosts of corvids and an owl village that vanished centuries ago.

Weaving together early literature, history and ornithology, this book takes readers on a journey far into the past to contemplate the nature of place and to discover a fascinating heritage that matters deeply to us now when so many places and their birds are threatened or already gone.

‘Magical … No journey in Britain will be quite the same again.’ – The Guardian

Buy a hardback copy of the book from bookshop.org.

Order a paperback copy of the book from bookshop.org – released 04 June 2026

The post In the Steps of J.A. Baker – SOLD OUT appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Sunday 31 May 2026, 2.00pm – 5.00pm
Wrabness Community Shop & Bar, next to the Train Station, Wrabness, Manningtree, CO11 2TL

Renowned architect and author of How to Enjoy Architecture, Charles Holland, challenges us to look beyond the day-to-day familiarity of buildings to rediscover the pleasure of experiencing architecture.

Architecture is bound up with our daily lives but, for most of us, it is experienced as a blur of habit. Our reactions towards the buildings that surround us are often culturally generated, and we experience them in ways that are immediate but often mundane. How to Enjoy Architecture: A Guide for Everyone encourages us to move beyond this and, instead, really look at buildings.

Charles will talk about the buildings and architects that excite and inspire him, with a special focus on A House for Essex (designed by FAT Architecture and Grayson Perry to explore the unique qualities of Essex), and the ideas and principles through which we can engage with architecture.

This event will be chaired by Hana Loftus

The talk will be followed by a walk to the magical and iconic A House for Essex.
Part of our series of Radical Walks.

Tickets: £15 / £12 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged) includes both author talk and guided walk

Event information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the day.
🖊️ There will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
📸 We will be filming and taking photos at this event.
☕  The bar will be open and serving drinks (including tea and coffee).

Timings

2.00pm – Gather at Wrabness Community Shop & Bar for a drink
2.30pm – Author talk: How to Enjoy Architecture with Charles Holland
3.30pm – Walk to A House for Essex (note: we will be walking around the outside of the house. We will not be going inside the house)
4.30pm – Back at the bar for more drinks and conversation

Charles Holland

Charles Holland is an architect, writer, and teacher. He is the principal of Charles Holland Architects, a design and research practice based in the UK. Prior to forming CHA, Charles was a director of FAT (Fashion Architecture and Taste), where he led a number of the practice’s key projects including A House for Essex, a collaboration with the artist Grayson Perry.

How to Enjoy Architecture: A Guide for Everyone

‘A book that will enrich any encounter with a building, it made me want to look harder and be more curious. We are led playfully through the fundamentals of architecture so that we might enjoy the details and the poetry of buildings all the more. A walk through the city feels more fun and also more profound after reading this book.’
– Grayson Perry, artist

‘We so often encounter architecture when it goes wrong, or offends us with its looks. Holland, though, is the perfect, clear-headed tour guide to help us appreciate it with newly sharpened senses and fall in love again – even those buildings we think we hate.’
– Tom Dyckhoff, academic and broadcaster

‘An enlightening and urbane exploration of architecture that resonates beyond conventional chronological histories.’
– Catherine Slessor, architecture writer and critic

‘A calm, wise, learned, undogmatic and quietly passionate new book.’
– Rowan Moore, The Observer

Buy a copy of the book from bookshop.org.

Hana Loftus

Photo of Hana Loftus © Polly Alderton

Hana Loftus is a planner, designer and writer based in Essex. She co-directs HAT Projects, an architecture and planning practice based in Colchester, and as a writer has been published in Apollo, Icon and widely in the architecture and planning press. Her first full-length book, Sixteen Acres, will be published by Profile Books in 2027 and an early version was shortlisted for the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize in 2025.

The post How to Enjoy Architecture – SOLD OUT appeared first on Essex Book Festival.