Six things I like about Chelmsford

It’s exactly six years since I arrived in Chelmsford, on a bank holiday weekend at the end of August 2015. We’d left New Zealand in a nightmarish flurry of last-minute packing in mid-July, and spent a few fairly restful weeks with family in Germany. Then Daniela had flown ahead to the UK with the boys, while I’d stayed on with the girls to visit friends in Berlin. Now, however, the day of reckoning had come. As the taxi from Southend airport carried us and our mountain of suitcases towards our new home, I wondered what awaited us. I’d never set foot in Chelmsford before, in fact a few weeks earlier I would have had trouble locating it on a map, and yet here I was moving in – kids, furniture and all – for at least a year, probably longer. What would it be like?

Well, Chelmsford hasn’t swept me off my feet, but it’s grown on me. It’s a city with many good qualities, some instantly apparent, others less so. Here are a few of my favourites, in no particular order.

1. The rivers

My first walk into town, the day after arrival, took me over the footbridge by the Tesco carpark. Looking down, I saw a slow-flowing river, its clear water revealing a complex landscape of bright green waterweed and numerous small fish. It was a brief glimpse, but rather magical. This river turned out to be the Chelmer, which is joined just south-east of the city centre by the somewhat smaller Can. Both are confined to austere concrete channels as they pass through the urban centre, but further upstream they meander through a nature reserve (the Chelmer) and parkland (the Can), their banks lush with plant life. Some of the most attractive spots have been created by human intervention: a lovely pool below a lock on the Can, just outside Admiral’s Park, and another at the foot of a weir across the Chelmer next to the university. I haven’t been tempted to take a dip personally, but on rare occasions I’ve seen teenagers venturing in. After sustained rain, on the other hand, both rivers offer the thrill of rather dramatic floods, transforming the familiar landscape and making footpaths impassable.

Here and below: the Chelmer in various seasons

2. The parks

One of my walks takes me along busy roads (Parkway and Rainsford Road) to the corner of Admiral’s Park. As soon as I’m in the park, the noise of the traffic is forgotten; I’m on a lovely avenue of copper beeches cutting diagonally across a large green field and – a rare thing in this fairly low-lying city – the land slopes away slightly, giving a broad view of the park and a glimpse of the countryside beyond it. The path takes me past a popular children’s playground and a cricket green to a bridge over the Can. At this point the river is shallow, clear, and attractively overhung with elms and horse chestnuts. If I turn left after the bridge I can walk through parks, along a wide path lined with weeping willows, sycamores, ashes, plane trees and limes, all the way into the town centre. After passing under the railway viaduct, I reach the lake and gardens of Central Park. Much thought and care (and money and manpower) has been put into keeping these both beautiful and interesting. Age groups less interested in flowers have also been catered for: there’s a big new children’s playground, outdoor table tennis tables, tennis and basketball courts, and a skatepark. It’s all well maintained, tidy and clean – a real asset for the people of Chelmsford.

Admiral's Park

Admiral's Park

Central Park

3. The historical structures

Chelmsford doesn’t exactly abound with wonderful old buildings – preserving the architectural heritage evidently hasn’t been a priority of the town’s planners over the years. The oldest, according to Wikipedia, is the cathedral, which incorporates remnants of the parish church rebuilt in the fifteenth century. This might not be a sight you would leave your home town to visit, but it has several attractive features (check out the ceiling of the nave, for example), and looks wonderfully Gothic on a foggy winter’s night.

Another striking building is the Shire Hall, at the top of the High Street. Opened in 1791, it originally housed law courts, a corn exchange, and assembly rooms. All these functions have gradually fallen away and it now stands empty, awaiting a brilliant plan for its resurrection. Its neoclassical façade is rather splendid in the late-afternoon sunshine, and I like to imagine horse-drawn carriages pulling up in front of it and spilling out their cargo of provincial beauties for the county ball.

My favourite Chelmsford landmarks, however, are the railway viaducts. Constructed in the early 1840s, they span Central Park and the Can, then the Chelmer further east. I’m hardly a railway enthusiastic, but I have to confess to a tiny moment of joy every time I pass under them and gaze up at their arches. Not just an impressive feat of engineering (this could also be said of modern motorway bridges), but aesthetically pleasing too.

4. The cycling

Chelmsford’s traffic can be truly diabolical, but the good news is that if you’re willing to get on your bike you can avoid the traffic jams: the city has an excellent network of signposted routes and dedicated cycle lanes.

Better still, if you head out of town in the right direction, you can access miles of quiet lanes through very pleasant countryside. To the northwest are the lovely villages of Good Easter and High Easter, Pleshey and Great Waltham; to the southwest the shady, deer-filled woods of Writtle Forest and the extravagant mansions of Fryerning. Or you can follow the national cycle route 1 eastward to Maldon for a breath of sea air (or at least estuary air). This route includes an off-road stretch with sand, gravel, puddles and winter mud, but if you can cope with that and don’t mind a bit of an ascent (it goes over the only hill for miles around), you’ll be rewarded with a delightful mix of countryside and woodland.

The Chelmer at Sandford Mill

National Cycle Route 1

The Chelmer at Great Waltham

5. The culture

Chelmsford has a well-stocked central library and several welcoming local libraries – despite the threats of Essex County Council to close many of the latter. Its theatres (in normal times) provide a varied programme, including free lunchtime concerts by local artists. And the city’s clubs and societies cater to all sort of cultural interests. When I looked for a choir (a first for me) a few months after arriving, I soon realized that there were several, including the very friendly and undemanding one that I joined. A year or two later a choir member invited me to join her book club (another first). And around the same time I decided to do something about my rusty French, and signed up to the French Circle. I haven’t yet felt moved to join the German Circle, but it’s nice to know it’s there.

6. Our house and garden

When we bought this house in 2016 it was a shabby ex-rental with a poky kitchen, the back door leading to a disused outside toilet and a bare garden edged by a sagging chicken-wire fence. Within months our builders had created a brilliant extension, giving us a bright, airy kitchen-diner, a second (indoor!) loo, and a long, skinny annex for me to work in. And once the builders had departed and the fence had been replaced we set to work on the garden, building a deck, laying out a lawn and flower beds, sowing and planting. Within four years it has been transformed from a wasteland to an inviting, relaxing green space, full of flowers and alive with insects in spring and summer. It’s more than we could ever afford in London, and it’s probably my favourite thing in Chelmsford.

So there you go, a very personal top six features of the city I live in. Other people’s lists might well give higher rankings to shops, restaurants and bars, all of which Chelmsford has in abundance, or to the city’s sports clubs or its recently rebuilt leisure centre. All these have served me and my family well – but for this post I wanted to focus on a few things that have made my life here more pleasant.

It may not be forever, but for now Chelmsford and I are getting on fine.