Epping Village

Queen Elizabeth I Hunting Lodge. Copyright Britain on View

Stand and deliver! If you'd visited Epping a couple of hundred years ago, that's the kind of feisty welcome you might have expected. Situated along what was once the main route from London to East Anglia – around 17 miles from the centre of London – it was quickly adopted as the hunting ground of many an entrepreneurial highwayman.

Happily, nowadays, it's more likely to be your heart that's stolen - by Epping's many charms. These include a Monday market, where you can haggle over everything from home-made fudge to haberdashery and St John’s Church, whose tower can be seen for miles around and whose organ is considered among the finest in Essex. Plus don't forget to sample a famous Epping sausage at Church Ltd, which has been trading on the same site since 1888!