Sheering: Walking and Local History

When planning a stay in Sheering, the Sheering Country Walk and the local historic landmarks offer two specific points of interest. Route details give its length and course; buildings and traces along the Stort Navigation add different historical and landscape perspectives. This can help you decide whether to focus your trip on walking, local history or both.

Circular Walk, Stort Navigation and Landscape

The Sheering Country Walk is a 7½-mile circular route away from the Stort Valley Way. The towpath of the Stort Navigation makes up most of the northern and eastern sections. This combination of a circular route, distance and a long stretch alongside the waterway helps you consider the walk as a distinct focus for your stay.

Along the Sheering Country Walk, several old field maple pollards stand beside boundary ditches; the largest has a circumference of 4.8 metres. This detail adds a specific glimpse of the vegetation along the route to the route description. Those who pay attention to the landscape as they walk will find not only the canal but also the field maples and their boundary ditches as part of the scenery.

Feakes Lock is one of the fifteen locks along the Stort Navigation. A 17th-century mill still stands beside the canal at Sheering Mill Lane. Together, these details show different aspects of the waterway: a named lock within the lock system and a historic building with a specific date.

Water meadows connected with Marsh Lane and the River Stort were also created through drainage and the digging of ditches in former marshland. This draws attention to another aspect of the landscape’s history: the focus here is on the transformation of a former marsh, not the path beside the water.

Historic Buildings in Sheering

The Maltings in Sheering is a Grade II listed building and part of an extensive group of brick maltings dating from the mid to late 19th century. There are also antique centres in the area around The Maltings for visitors to explore. Here, a historic connection with the buildings meets a specific reason to visit the centres.

Sheering Hall consists of hall houses from the late 15th and early 16th centuries, forming a “Unit System” group of manorial status. Compared with the 19th-century maltings, this architectural focus dates from much earlier: Sheering Hall represents the late 15th and early 16th centuries, while The Maltings dates from the mid to late 19th century.

The Gate Piers of Durrington Hall are stone gate piers dating from the 18th or 19th century, about 100 metres west of Durrington Hall. They are listed for their group value. Their approximate location and the reason for their designation place the gate piers in both a geographical and group context.

St Mary the Virgin: History and Services

St Mary’s Church in Sheering dates from the Middle Ages. St Mary the Virgin is open for services from 10 am on the first four Sundays of each month; services begin at 10.30 am. This gives you two different points of reference for a visit: the church’s medieval origins and specific Sunday service times. Check the times before your visit, as they may change.

Discover more destinations: Walton-On-The-Naze, Steeple Bumpstead, Great Hallingbury, Warley, Hempstead, Stondon Massey, Stebbing, Colchester.

For the main travel overview: Essex.