The saltmarsh has its own rich tang of whisky, earth and algae

Old Hall Marshes, Essex: Outside the seawall the sombre estuarine mud is densely carved into curled knollsA tongue of land borrowed from the mouth of the Blackwater estuary. Inside the mile-long V of grassy banks that exclude the sea the tamed land is riven by the contorted veins of once-tidal channels, now filled with freshwater. Today they are frozen into wide, snaking sheets of white. The khaki reeds that fringe the ice blend into fields of dead grass dotted with the greener humps of ancient