Colne Point

Lee-over-Sands is a small coastal hamlet in the civil parish of St Osyth, in the Tendring district of Essex, England. It is located close to the mouth of the River Colne into the North Sea.A sandspit called Colne Point is offshore from the hamlet. Colne Point Nature Reserve, a shingle ridge enclosing a saltmarsh, is to the west of the hamlet on the site of a World War I gravel works. Jaywick Martello Tower is 1.8 miles (2.9 km) east of Lee-over-Sands. The area is subject to flooding, and was severely affected by the North Sea flood of 1953, when the seawall was breached in many locations near the village. Thirty-seven people died in nearby Jaywick, 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Lee-over-Sands. In January 2017 following a threat of coastal flooding, an evacuation of 2,500 homes in Lee-over-Sands and nearby Jaywick was planned, but in the event not required.A number of houses are on the seaward side of the seawall, on Beach Road. One house on Beach Road won the RIBA East Award 2017 and the RIBA East Small Project Award 2017, and was long-listed for the national RIBA House of the Year award.

Point Clear is a village in the civil parish of St Osyth, south-west of the village of St Osyth and on the other side of St Osyth Creek, a branch of the Colne Estuary in the Tendring district, in the county of Essex, England. In 2018 it had an estimated population of 1674.

St Osyth's Abbey (originally and still commonly known as St Osyth's Priory) was a house of Augustine Canons Regular in the parish of St Osyth (then named Chich) in Essex, England in use from the 12th to 16th centuries. Founded by Richard de Belmeis, Bishop of London, c. 1121, it became one of the largest religious houses in Essex. It was dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul as well as St Osyth (Osith), a royal saint and virgin martyr. Bishop Richard obtained the arm bone of St Osyth from Aylesbury for the monastic church and granted the canons the parish church of St Osyth. The foundation began as a priory, probably populated first by canons from Holy Trinity, Aldgate. The first prior of St Osyth's was William de Corbeil, who was elected archbishop of Canterbury in 1123 and who crowned King Stephen in 1135. The priory was converted into an abbey in the mid-12th century.In Gesta pontificum Anglorum, William of Malmesbury spoke in praise of the piety and learning of the canons at St Osyth's in the twelfth century. One of the second generation of canons there was William de Vere, later bishop of Hereford, who wrote a Latin Life of St Osyth, in which he mentions that his mother Adeliza, daughter of Gilbert fitz Richard of Clare, had been a corrodian at the abbey for twenty years of her widowhood. A charter of King Henry II confirmed the right of the canons of St Osyth's to elect their abbot and to hold a market every Sunday at Chich in the later 12th century. John Depyng, prior of St. Botolph's was made abbot of St Osyth's in 1434, and took with him goods of considerable value belonging to the priory. He never returned these, and after his death St Botolph's brought an apparently unsuccessful lawsuit in Chancery against St Osyth's for their recovery.During the Suppression of the Monasteries, the religious group was dissolved by King Henry VIII in 1539, at which time there were a prior and sixteen canons. The king granted it to his minister Thomas Cromwell, but on his fall from favour, the abbey and its estates were returned to crown possession. In the reign of King Edward VI they were sold to Sir Thomas Darcy for just under £400. The gatehouse, dating from the late 15th century, is the most significant remnant of the original monastic structures still standing. The exterior is a fine example of decorative flint work. Five parts of the priory are Grade I listed buildings.On 11 November 1884 the building was consecrated as a masonic lodge (no. 2063), one of the principal officers being the then owner, Sir John Henry Johnson. The priory was later owned by the writer Somerset de Chair, from 1954 until his death in 1995. It stood in for St Anselm's Theological College in the BBC's miniseries adaptation of P. D. James' Death in Holy Orders in 2003.

St Osyth is an English village and civil parish in the Tendring District of north-east Essex, about 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Clacton-on-Sea and 12 miles (19.3 km) south-east of Colchester. It lies on the B1027, Colchester–Clacton road. The village is named after Osgyth, a 7th-century saint and princess. Locally, the name is sometimes pronounced "Toosey". It is claimed to be the driest recorded place in the United Kingdom.

Cindery Island is at the mouth of Brightlingsea Creek (off the town of Brightlingsea) on the east coast of England in the county of Essex.

Jaywick Martello Tower is a renovated Martello tower at Jaywick, 2.7 miles (4.3 km) south-west of Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. It now functions as an arts, heritage and community venue. It is a Grade II listed building and a scheduled monument.

Howlands Marsh is a 29.9-hectare (74-acre) nature reserve north-east of St Osyth in Essex. It is managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust. It is part of the Colne Estuary Site of Special Scientific Interest Special Protection Area and Ramsar site, and the Blackwater Flats and Marshes Nature Conservation Review site.This site is marshy grassland, which is low lying and hummocky, and divided by water channels. There are also areas of saltmarsh, which has sea wormwood and golden samphire. Breeding birds include reed warblers, skylarks, lapwings and reed buntings.There is access by a footpath from the B1027 road.

St Osyth Pit is a 0.1-hectare (0.25-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of St Osyth in Essex. It is a Geological Conservation Review site.The site has a succession of deposits which throw light of the diversion of the River Thames south to its present course during the Anglian Ice Age around 450,000 years ago. The lower level has gravel deposited by the Thames when it flowed through the area before the ice age. This is overlain by sand and very fine gravel deposited by outwash during a brief period when the Thames was blocked by ice.The site is private land with no public access.

Brightlingsea () is a coastal town and an electoral ward in the Tendring district of Essex, England. It is situated between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea, at the mouth of the River Colne, on Brightlingsea Creek. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 8,076. The town is an active though small port.Its traditional industries included fishery (with a renowned oyster fishery) and shipbuilding. With the decline of these industries, the town is largely a dormitory town for Colchester. Brightlingsea is a limb of Sandwich, one of the Cinque Ports. The town retains an active ceremonial connection with the Cinque Ports, electing a Deputy from a guild of Freemen. Brightlingsea was for many years twinned with French oyster fishery port Marennes, Charente-Maritime, but the relationship fell into disuse. In the mid-1990s, the port of Brightlingsea was used for the export of live animals for slaughter, leading to a protest campaign dubbed The Battle of Brightlingsea.

The Battle of Brightlingsea refers to a series of protests by animal rights supporters held in Brightlingsea, England, between 16 January and 30 October 1995, to prevent the export of livestock through the town. During this time period, early 1990s, this action had been talked and argued about among individuals. The name was first used by the media in The Independent newspaper, after Essex Police used riot control measures against demonstrators.By 1995, members of the public had become increasingly concerned about the conditions in which animals were reared, transported and slaughtered. Some examples of the farm animals that were being exported to continental Europe were cattle, veal calves and sheep. British exporters had been forced to use small ports such as Brightlingsea to transport livestock after the country's three main ferry operators introduced bans on live cargo. This followed mounting public pressure about the suffering of sheep and cattle packed into huge transport vehicles for excessive periods. There were 2 national campaign groups trying to help this cause; the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Compassion in World Farming. They had called for a ban on all live exports by limiting journeys to eight hours. At the time, European regulations allowed for journeys of up to 24 hours without food or water. They used different tactics to highlight this issue, and eventually succeeded in influencing public opinion so that ferry companies took action. As a result of the ferry company ban, however, the transportation of the cattle was moved to the small, independently operated port of Brightlingsea.The demonstrations, which were composed largely of local residents, ended on 30 October, when exporters announced they would no longer transport animals through the town because of the extra cost and logistical chaos caused by the daily protests. In practice, the export of live animals continued from other small ports, halting only in February 1996 when the European Union banned all meat exports from Britain over fears of "mad cow disease" entering the European food chain. The ban was lifted in 2006.

Brighlingsea Naval Base was an installation of the British Royal Navy located at Brightlingsea, Essex, on the East Coast of England. In both wars it was part of the Nore Command, which had its HQ at Chatham, and in the Second was part of Harwich Sub-Command. It existed from late 1914 to 1921, and from early 1940 to 1947, Brightlingsea is a coastal town in the Tendring district of Essex, England. It is situated between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea, at the mouth of the River Colne, on Brightlingsea Creek.

Brightlingsea railway station was located in Brightlingsea, Essex. It was on the single track branch line of the Wivenhoe and Brightlingsea Railway which opened in 1866 and closed in 1964.