Epic 80-mile Essex journey where you don't leave the county once
Here in Essex, we're used to long commutes and sitting around driving on roads. But have you ever wondered where the longest possible Essex commute could be?
There's one potential commute which would be absolutely colossal, especially on Essex's busy roads. Clocking in at around 80 miles, the journey would take roughly 90 minutes on a good day.
However, if there was a traffic jam, this could easily balloon to well over three hours. The journey takes the quickest possible route between two points on the Essex map, and doesn't leave the county boundaries at any point. If you lived at one end and worked at the other, this would be your reality every day.
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Here's the epic journey where you won't leave the county once
Predictably, the longest commute in Essex is from one corner of the county to the other. Thanks to Harwich sticking out into the North Sea, our starting point is in this coastal port town.
The CO12 3HB postcode occupies the furthest north-east you can go in Essex, and is home to a number of businesses and properties. If you started here, and drove all the way to the south-west corner of Essex, you'll end up travelling the longest possible journey in the county. Of course, longer journeys are possible if drivers chose to zig-zag and create mass detours.
But even the shortest possible journey by road could stretch for 77 miles. The south-west corner is in the town of Buckhurst Hill.
Even though the town has its own London Underground station on the Central Line, it's still part of Essex, falling under the Epping Forest district council area. The postcode which is furthest south-west is IG9 5HT, and if you work here and live in Harwich, you're going to be set for a long journey.
What route do you take?
On a good day, a motorist following legal speed limits could do this journey is about 90 minutes. But because of major roads this route takes, it could end up being a lot more. The route would start in Harwich, and move onto King's Quay towards the A120. Once on the A120, motorists would drive all the way to the A12.
Both of these roads are notorious for traffic on busy days, so our poor commuter could suffer badly here. Once on the A12, our motorist would have to follow it all the way towards London for 40 miles.
They would then have to join the M25 for about 12 miles, before taking the A121, A104 and High Road in Buckhurst Hill. Because of how notoriously difficult some of these roads are for motorists in terms of traffic jams and accidents, this journey could take absolute hours. It's very lucky that a commute between the two Essex towns is rather rare.
The other journey
Even though the journey between Harwich and Buckhurst Hill is the longest possible in Essex, there is another contender. Now the logical journey to look at after north-east to south-west would be north-west to south-east.
But because Essex's most southeastern corner is the Foulness Island, things aren't quite as straight forward. There's no public access onto the island, which is owned by the Ministry of Defence and used as a shooting range.
There is the curious case of The Broomway, a public right of way which can only be accessed at low tide. But practically, a commute onto Foulness Island is not possible.
Because of this, the other longest journey actually starts in the most north-westerly corner, and travels to the eastern tip of the Dengie Peninsula. That means instead of travelling towards Southend-on-Sea, you'll be driving past Burnham-upon-Crouch instead.
This journey between CB10 1RN near the Cambridgeshire border and CB10 1RN near Monsale, Essex, is only roughly 63 miles long. But because of the winding roads you'd have to take, the journey would take approximately the same amount of time.
However, because it's not quite as long and doesn't suffer the same perils that the Harwich to Buckhurst Hill journey does, we've put it in a very honourable second place. We still wouldn't want to do it in the morning.