The Little Book of Essex

Did you know? In the eleventh century, Edward the Confessor banished nightingales from the royal palace at Havering-atte-Bower because their singing disturbed his devotions. In 1913, Benny Hucks of Stansted Mountfitchet was the first person to perform a loop-the-loop in an aircraft. On Boxing Day 1946, Hatfield Heath villagers challenged local German and Italian POWs to a football match – and lost 11–0. Brentwood was the first town in Britain to install CCTV. A compendium of frivolity, a referen