The town of Halstead is a bit anomalous compared to some of its neighbours in the county of Essex. After all, Essex is where the urban meets the suburban and the great shadow of London casts a wide swath around the entire area. In other words, London's influence is so massive that the surrounding small towns have no choice but to ameliorate varying degrees of this big city flavour. This can be very exciting and even beneficial, since a place like Halstead and other London suburbs can enjoy the benefits of a thriving metropolis without having to deal with most of the drawbacks like crime and crowding. All the same, the fact remains that many of these so-called "suburbs" are actually towns that have existed in England for many centuries. Halstead is just such a town but it is lucky in that it has managed to retain a great portion of its original charm and features rather than being updated into a modern sector of the big city.
The best way to get a glimpse of the real Halstead is to visit the town's High Street. Here you'll find the stunning St. Andrew's Church which dates back to the 1300s. Though renovations occurred intermittently during the Victorian Era, the church is still a perfect example of what it might have been like to walk through the streets of Halstead some centuries ago. A younger but perhaps more historic manor can also be found near Moyns Park. It was in this Grade I listed building that the famed James Bond novelist Ian Fleming penned the popular "From Russia with Love". Another famous author, Sheila Jacobs, was also a resident of Halstead.
Examples like these allow Halstead to claim a bit more identity than many of the other towns that, while once famous in their own right for various reasons, now find themselves regarded as little more than outlying areas of the town that Big Ben calls home. As mentioned above, though, such a close proximity to London is by no means a bad thing. To be sure, Halstead most assuredly shows influence from the city and these touches don't detract from the town's charm but in fact enhance it. The town is home to over eleven thousand people and this makes it far more populous than many towns that adhere to their traditions in the way Halstead does. Furthermore, Halstead is filled to the brim with exciting night life such as pubs and clubs and this makes the town enjoyable not only for history buffs but to modernized youngsters who appreciate more visceral entertainment. By all accounts Halstead is a wonderful place to call home as well as a fantastic place to visit whether you enjoy entertainment or history or even both. London is just a short trip away and thus commuters particularly love the town but you can live a full and rich life in Halstead without ever visiting that lumbering and ancient metropolis, if you so wished.
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