Walking the Doomway
Come for a carefully guided walk on the enigmatic sea-track branded the deadliest footpath in Britain.
Where do you think the most dangerous path in Britain is?
THERE IS SOMETHING peculiar about the notion that the deadliest footpath in Britain can be found in Essex. I don’t mean in terms of Essex’s latter-day media rap. I spent five wonderful years living in Essex and I will defend its friendly people, beautiful scenery and pioneer spirit to the hilt. No, I mean in terms of the fact that Britain’s most dangerous footpath is not in the Scottish Highlands. Or in a peat hag in the middle of the Pennines. Or on a razorback Snowdonian ridge. It’s in Essex. Not far from Southend-on-Sea. It’s called the Broomway, and in addition to being deadly, it is absolutely beguiling: an enigmatic, brooding track that exerts a magnetic pull for walkers of a curious mind.
Open the OS Explorer map of the Essex coast and the Broomway leaps out instantly. A deadstraight line of green crosses, later becoming dashes, running parallel to the shoreline for six miles between Wakering Stairs and Fisherman’s Head. And the reason it leaps out is because it’s in the sea. For at least half of every day, the Broomway is under water. That’s the first block on which its deadliness is built, but there’s more to it than that. There’s the horrific speed of the tide here, due to the soft shelving of the Maplin Sands. Incoming, the tide can easily outpace a walking human, sometimes even a running one. There are the outflows of the rivers Roach and Crouch: if full and surging, they will speed up that sprinting tide still further, whipping up whirlpools and freak currents. The weather conditions can mix things up still further.
Also, there is no physical path. The broomlike markers which once gave the Broomway its name are long gone, and there is nothing to distinguish the route on the ground at all. Just featureless wet sand. If you know where the line is, or can follow it via GPS, the route of the Broomway is safe and solid enough. But while the sand either side may look identical, it can conceal anything from waist-deep sloughs of mud to sudden banks of quicksand. To say nothing of unexploded ordnance.
Since the start of the 17th century, 66 bodies have been recovered from the Broomway; scores more are unaccounted for. Little wonder the Edwardian press called it ‘the Doomway’ and branded it the most perilous path in Britain. ▶
It’s even more complicated today, because there are people with guns. The Broomway connects the mainland with two islands, Havengore and Foulness, which are both privately owned by the Ministry of Defence and used for munitions testing. Just driving to Wakering Stairs requires you to pass through a security gate under watchful eyes both human and electronic, and access onto either island is strictly limited – and enforced.
So even if the tide is in your favour, you will more than likely find you don’t have permission to go ashore at the far end. The task, then, is to get as far as safely possible, and return to Wakering Stairs, before the tide catches you.
So here’s me, setting out onto the sands one moody winter’s afternoon. Am I being ludicrously irresponsible doing this, and even more so for suggesting you can do it too?
Thankfully not, because I’ve done the right thing. I’m walking with a guide. The guide.
Tom Bennett took up the mantle of walking guide to the Broomway at the beginning of 2020. He succeeded veteran Brian Dawson, who stepped away from the damp sand at the age of 76 after decades of leading walkers safely out and back.
First question: what made Tom want to turn an apparently lethal footpath into his bread and butter? The answer turns out to be surprising.
It’s the nearest he could get to a mountain.
“I love hillwalking, and I qualified as a Mountain Leader with the hope of becoming a guide, until I suddenly realised I lived in London,” says Tom, with a wry smile.
“So I started looking for a guiding experience in south-east England that would require Mountain Leader skills. It’s not a huge market. But then I thought of the Broomway.”
The flatline of the Essex horizon might seem as far removed from a mountain peak as you can get, but for Tom there’s an obvious read-across.
“It’s the same sense of wanting to seek out something that’s essentially dangerous, in a way that manages the risk,” he explains.
“If you manage the risks of the Broomway carefully, if you know how to prepare and respond to them, and if you know when to turn back, then it’s perfectly safe. That’s exactly how it is with climbing a mountain.”
Like many, Tom became aware of the Broomway after reading about it in Robert Macfarlane’s 2012 bestselling book about ancient footpaths, The Old Ways. Before Macfarlane, the Broomway was an esoteric curio known to a small and scattered cabal of devotees. Macfarlane’s account turned it into box office gold. Interest in walking the Broomway exploded, and the demand soon far exceeded Brian Dawson’s occasional trip capacity, arranged by phone when convenient to the guide. So in taking the mantle last year, Tom has sought to broaden the enterprise with a dedicated website, a booking portal and help from a team of fellow guides.
That said, he is still governed by irresistible forces and immovable objects. Opportunities for walking the Broomway are still strictly limited by the tide, the weather conditions and whatever goes on at Foulness. Most walks take place at weekends, when the MoD and its private arm Qinetiq are least likely to resist public activity. But even then, it can only happen on weekends like this one, when the tide times allow for walking at civilised hours.
It’s a complex equation, and of course the pandemic did not help. Happily, Tom was able to conduct tours when restrictions were eased in the back half of last year. Currently he is only able to guide on a one-to-one basis, but he hopes the vaccination program means he may be able to restart limited group walks again this spring.
His clientele includes walkers, birdwatchers, photographers; musicians seeking inspiration; and maritime history buffs on the trail of shipwrecks, offshore forts and the abandoned Pig’s Bay submarine boom. All are united by a burning curiosity about this bewitching path. ▶
“It’s an extraordinary landscape, and it has something about it no matter what the weather is doing,” says Tom.
“On a grey day it can be mysterious and ghostly, and sometimes the horizon line disappears and you see tankers that look like they’re floating through the air. On a bright, sunny day, you have the very best gargantuan Essex skies. And either way, it’s a unique feeling to be walking so far out from the shoreline, on what is essentially the seabed.”
The Broomway’s relationship with the coast is fascinating. The route is never more than half a mile from the shore, and seeing the shoreline so apparently close gives a dangerously false impression of safety. The sands between the routeline and the shore are treacherous, so a direct retreat is ill-advised in the extreme. And if the shoreline disappears in mist, all reference points are lost and only the soundest of navigation skills (or a guide) will get you to safety.
My GPS shows that Tom is keeping us bang on the green line. But how did the users of old manage it? Most scholars believe there was a more obvious path in centuries gone by, and it was along this line that the trail of ‘brooms’ was laid, each one 30 yards from its neighbour.
But Tom says travellers would carry an insurance policy in case mist descended and the next broom was invisible: a length of rope tied round a large stone. Depositing the stone at the last visible broom, they would slowly walk in what they guessed was the right direction, unfurling the rope until – hopefully – the next broom appeared. If they got to the end of the rope and no broom was forthcoming, at least they could retrace their steps and try again. This was far from foolproof, as the traveller could easily wander into the perils either side of the safe line. And retracing steps would take valuable time which an incoming tide could make the most of.
These days there is only one substantial landmark on the journey, apart from a couple
of small and just-about-visitable shipwrecks: the Maypole. A telegraph pole sunk deep into the sand, with barnacled crosspieces, the Maypole is a shipping beacon marking the approach channel to Havengore Creek. Look inland and you’ll see Havengore Bridge, linking the mysterious islands to the mainland. The original version of this bridge was what killed the Broomway as a practical thoroughfare.
Another thought occurs at this point: the land around us was not always so temporary. We’re standing on Doggerland, the vast tundra plain that once connected eastern England to northern Europe. This was once pasture and woodland. Humans hunted and traded on this ground, at least until around 6500BC, when the thawing of the last ice age submerged Doggerland beneath the North Sea and turned that rich landscape into sand. Walking generally takes us to new horizons, but in this case it takes us to an extremely old one.
Later on, as we reach the safe apex point of the walk and turn back for Wakering, another thought occurs: that it has been a very long time since I sat down. It’s rare to find a walk that requires you to stay on your feet for quite such a long time. But that’s what you get for walking in the sea.
Nearing Wakering Stairs, I’m thinking Tom is right: I feel I have exercised every skill of a mountain walk. Planning, prep, navigation; thrillseeking with curiosity and caution.
Okay there hasn’t been a lot of ascent and descent, but thanks to the slightly sucky sand and lack of seating, my legs and feet definitely know they’ve done a day’s work.
Then my phone beeps. My mother-in-law has sent me a screenshot of her Find My Family app, and my face is clearly not where she expected it to be.
“WHY ARE YOU IN THE SEA?”, she demands to know, via text.
Don’t worry, I reply. I’m fine. I’ve just been walking the Doomway.
I get the feeling that didn’t help.