" A drawing of it survives in the local
museum.
Maldon, the capital of the Blackwater district, is to the eye of an
artist a town for twilight effects. The picturesque skyline of its
long, straggling street is accentuated in the early morning or
afterglow, when much undesirable detail of modern times below the
tiled roofs is blurred and lost. In broad daylight the quaintness of
its suburbs towards the river reeks of the salt flavour of W.W.
Jacobs's stories. Formerly the town was rich with such massive timber
buildings as still appear in the yard of the Blue Boar--an ancient
hostelry which was evidently modernized externally in Pickwickian
times. While exploring in the outhouses of this hostel Mr. Roe lighted
on a venerable posting-coach of early nineteenth-century origin among
some other decaying vehicles, a curiosity even more rare nowadays than
the Gothic king-posts to be seen in the picturesque half-timbered
billiard-room.
[Illustration: Maldon, Essex. Sky-line of the High Street at twilight]
The country around Maldon is dotted plentifully with evidences of
past ages; Layer Marney, with its famous towers; D'Arcy Hall, noted
for containing some of the finest linen panelling in England; Beeleigh
Abbey, and other old-world buildings. The sea-serpent may still be
seen at Heybridge, on the Norman church-door, one of the best of its
kind, and exhibiting almost all its original ironwork, including the
chimerical decorative clamp.
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