MUDDY CHALLENGE

Maldon is often known as Maldon-on-the-Mud, and mud is certainly abundant in the estuary. Locals celebrate this with an extraordinary event called the Maldon Mud Race. The date of the event is moveable, and it is a frantic 550yd (503m) dash across the mud at low tide, starting from Promenade Park. The race began in 1973, when the landlord of the Queen’s Head pub was challenged to serve a meal on the saltings of the river dressed in a dinner jacket. The landlord obliged, and repeated the feat the following year, this time with the addition of a bar. 20 people ran across the river bed, drank a pint of beer and ran back, beginning the tradition of the mud race. It died out in 1989, but was revived in 1994 and has continued intermittently ever since.