Susan Yates, chair of Thurrock Historical Society, reminds us in her latest article that history is all around us and imagination and memories can help lift the spirits.

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WELL here we are all in once again. As I left football on Saturday we all wished each other a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year not knowing when or if we would see each other again.

It makes me so cross that because of senior schoolchildren and students who refuse to obey the restrictions I will no longer be able to visit my friends but they will still see theirs at school and university.

Do I get depressed during lockdown?

No I don't because I think of my Nan who at the age of 25 lost her first husband in the First World War leaving her with two small daughters and in the Second World War she lost her eldest son when his aircraft went down over the Bay of Biscay.

I just tell myself if she could survive all that Covid lockdown is nothing. I think of the many historic sites in Essex that I love to visit. One of my favourites is St Peters Chapel at Bradwell.

I imagine it is a lovely sunny day, clear blue sky, warm but not uncomfortably so. I get in my car and head East on the A13/A130. There is very little traffic on the road and no road works as I pass Baker Street smock mill on my left.

There was probably a mill on this site as far back as 1674. According to the owner of this, smock type windmill in 1950 it was built in 1765 but there is no evidence of its existence until 1796. This white weather boarded smock mill glistens in the sunshine a picture in the landscape evocative of a time when you could not travel more than three miles in Essex without seeing a windmill.

In May 1853 Baker Street windmill was the scene of a tragedy. William Harris an employee of William Woollings whist doing some maintenance work fell from the sails landing first on the staging and then on the ground. A doctor was summoned but to no avail.

On to the A130 with its proliferation of World War 2 pill boxes. Built in World War 2 by soldiers and locals these were the first inland line of defence against a possible German invasion.

Through the new town of South Woodham Ferrers, on via Latchingdon and Steeple to Bradwell. At St Thomas's 14th century church the road forks the left fork leading to the old Bradwell airfield and its war memorial, in the form of a crashed mosquito aircraft, erected as a result of the local ladies to the memory of the 121 young men who flew from here never to return that they should 'never be forgotten'.

I take the right fork passing the Jossing Block or five stone mounting steps, possibly 18th century, with cast iron post with ball finial situated outside the churchyard and the Cage which gave Cage Row its name.

This was the former 18th century village lock up. At the end of East End road I park the car and continue my journey on foot. The smell of fresh cut grass wafts across the fields and in the distance I see what looks like a barn standing out against the blue sky. Sea gulls are circling as we are near the estuary of the River Blackwater.

This plain little building has stood here for over 1300 years raised to the glory of God.

St Peter's Chapel was built by St Cedd in AD 653 when he came to Essex to Christianise the locals at the request of Sigbert King of the East Saxons. The original building was of timber but in AD654 a stone building was erected on the line of the wall of the old Roman Fort of Orthona most probably on the site of the Western Gate.

It was quite common at this time to recycle building materials. If you look very carefully in the boundary of Linnet Cottage you can still see one small section of the fort wall which was about 12 inches thick.

St Cedd founded a monastery here which held over 30 monks. In AD664 St Cedd attended the Synod of Whitby. He stayed at Lastingham where he contracted the plague. Hearing he was ill 30 of his monks came from Bradwell to be with him.

Sadly all but one, a young boy, contracted the plague and died like St. Cedd in October 664. Although now a simple building it did at one time have a chancel, a nave and a small tower over the porch. In the 14th century St Thomas's became the parish church and St Peters became a chapel of ease.

In the 16th century it caught fire and sustained damage. The chancel was repaired by the Rector and the nave by the parishioners. By the 17th century the chancel had been demolished and the nave was used as a barn.

All was not lost owner Mr C.W. Parker put it under trustees and it was reconsecrated by the Bishop of Chelmsford on 22nd June 1920. The interior is very basic and this gives it for me a quite magical effect of simplicity and serenity.

It is a place of peace, of reflection, of contemplation and seems far away from the stresses of modern day life. The altar is made up of three pieces of stone. The left stone from Holy Island Lindisfarne where St Cedd was trained. The middle stone from the Isle of Iona and the right stone from Lastingham where St Cedd died.

It is a very simple and yet effective altar and was consecrated by the Bishop of Chelmsford on 6th July 1985.

Each year on the first Saturday in July Christians make a pilgrimage here as it is one of, if not the oldest, living churches in the country. I was fortunate once to witness this sight and was pleased that I had as this is a very special place.

I am not the only person to think that as Norman Motley a Church of England priest who served as chaplain in the RAF during World War II obviously did as he started the Orthona Christian Community whose headquarters are just past the chapel down by the beach.

Norman and his friends found that wartime lowered the social and religious barriers and wanted to do the same in peacetime and so founded the Orthona Christian Community near this 'simple little barn of a church on the edge of the Essex marshes'.

Close by on the beach is the birdwatchers hut which adds to the atmosphere of peace, quiet and being at one with nature. Essex has so much history and so many great places to visit. If only in the mind at the moment!