River

THE UK is full of pretty towns and villages – but this one is home to one of the best pubs in the country.

According to the Good Food Guide this restaurant is a place where you’ll get some of the tastiest food in the country – and the village has lots to see too.

Dedham is in Essex, right on the border with Suffolk and it sits on the River Stour which passes through the north tip of the village.

It’s filled with tearooms, restaurants and a pub called The Sun Inn which has an award-winning wine list and two AA rosette awards.

Speaking about The Sun Inn, the Good Food Guide said: “As slices of English heritage go, Piers Baker’s 15th-century yellow-washed coaching inn right in the heart of Dedham is nigh-on perfect.

“There’s a sense of seasonality too in menus that offer a winning mix of updated pub classics and more inventive, Italian-accented dishes built around prime seasonal ingredients.

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“White the Sun is an emphatically laid-back place, there’s no corner-cutting.”

On Sundays the pub serves roast dinners including beef, port and celeriac all with roast potatoes, seasonal vegetables Yorkshire puddings and gravy.

They also serve up breakfast, kids meals as well as a Christmas menu.

You can stay at the pub too in one of the seven rooms – which for bed and breakfast starts at £185 (based on two people sharing).

Some of the rooms are dog-friendly, and all have big beds and ensuite bathrooms.

The River Stour, which begins west of Great Bradley in Cambridgeshire, and ends in the North Sea at Harwich passes through the village.

It’s often used for canoeing and kayaking with picnickers setting up along the bank during the summer months.

Dedham is a village on the outskirts of Colchester, which was once the country’s ‘oldest town’.

Colchester was given city status just two years ago as part of The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

It was one of the very first Roman cities, and it’s history stretches back thousands of years.

Here’s more from on Sun Writer who swapped the Cotswolds for a less-crowded but equally quaint weekend in Essex’s most perfect market town.

Plus, here’s England’s smallest town which has riverfront pubs, man-made beach and its own train station.

Quaint British villages with toy-town cottages, car-free roads and cosy pubs – handpicked by our travel writers

Harrogate, North Yorkshire – Hope Brotherton, Travel Reporter
For the last few years, my annual trip to Harrogate has been an immovable fixture in my calendar. The Victorian spa town is the perfect place for a little bit of R&R thanks to its history of spa tourism, which is very much alive. Head to The Harrogate Spa at the DoubleTree by Hilton Harrogate Majestic Hotel if you’d like a pamper, which is a personal favourite of mine. Make sure to overindulge at Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms where a glass of pink champagne and a huge scone are almost compulsory.

Lavenham, Suffolk – Kara Godfrey, Deputy Travel Editor
One of my favourite villages I’ve ever visited in England is Lavenham, which is beautiful in autumn. Said to be the best preserved medieval village in the UK, it is known for two buildings – the 600-year-old Crooked House and the De Vere House, which featured in the Harry Potter films. Warm up at The Swan Hotel, which has its cosy Weavers Spa onsite.

Robin Hood’s Bay, Yorkshire – Sophie Swietochowski, Assistant Travel Editor
Perched atop a craggy cliff, overlooking a dinky shore, Robin Hood’s Bay seems like something from a fiction tale or a North Yorkshire postcard. In summer, you’ll find dogs sprinting along the sands, while owners tuck into fresh crab sandwiches from the beachside hut and little ones fish for treasures in the rock pools. I prefer the village in winter, though, when the weather takes a turn and nature comes alive with the grassy dunes dancing in the wind and moody waves thrashing on the rocks.

Hay On Wye, Wales – Caroline McGuire, Head of Travel – Digital
When I first set foot in Hay-On-Wye, I couldn’t believe I’d left it until my late thirties to visit – what a waste of a few decades. The small town on the Welsh borders that sits on the River Wye is probably best known for hosting the annual Hay literary festival, and it’s definitely a book-lovers paradise – with more than 20 book stores to explore. They sit among the many antiques shops, which sell everything from fabulous Welsh rugs to toy soldiers, trinkets and beautiful furniture.  There are so many things to browse that I could probably waste a whole week on second-hand shopping alone. 

Letchmore Heath, Hertfordshire – Lisa Minot, Head of Travel
This quintessential little village may seem very familiar to some. It’s tiny – with just 150 houses, a village green, a pond and a lovely pub, The Three Horseshoes. But with Elstree Studios just up the road, it has been used as a set in countless films, in particular the 1960s British horror movie, Village of the Damned. Its close proximity to London – just half an hour away on a train from nearby Radlett or Elstree and Borehamwood station – means it’s easy to get to.

On a Sunday evening in March this year, Akiba Ekpeyong, a community leader in Akpap-Okoyong, received a text message that made him drop everything he was doing in the community, a cluster of farming villages in Odukpani Local Government Area of Cross River State, South-South Nigeria.

The message came from another chief nearby, warning of a brewing argument between two youths at a football match in Mbabam. The tone was urgent and frighteningly reminiscent of how many communal crises begin.

“I went there immediately,” Akiba recalled. “Before it turns to something else, we have to talk to the boys.”

That message was part of a growing network of peace responders linked through an early warning system created by the Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND). In this system, the first step to preventing violence could be as simple as sending an SMS. In many communities across the region, this system has been deployed by the non-profit to end conflicts before they escalate. 

The many faces of conflict 

Cross River, fondly known as “the people’s paradise”, may be best known for its colourful annual Calabar Carnival and its vast forest reserves. However, unending land disputes, cult clashes, political rivalries, and resource competition that often turn deadly, are also a constant in the state, said Professor Rapheal Offiong, a geographer and peace scholar at the University of Calabar.

Between 2020 and 2023, communal and boundary disputes claimed more than 400 lives in the state, including that of a 10-year-old child, while over 300 houses were destroyed. A report also indicated that at least 15 of the state’s 18 local government areas have experienced one form of conflict or another during the period.

According to Professor Raphael, these crises stem from far deeper issues: Poverty, the quest for land, stress for survival, and lack of understanding, all worsened by a disconnect between the political class, traditional rulers, and the youth. “That gap in leadership and trust is what I see as the major disturbance,” he said. 

The peace scholar also blamed greed and speculative land buying in poor communities. “It’s the landmongers,” he said, “those deep pockets who want to expand their cocoa or oil palm farms. They bring money, and because of poverty, people sell. Then everyone becomes territorial, and in trying to protect their territory, they must fight.”

Cocoa and oil palm are central to Cross River’s economy, providing livelihoods for thousands of smallholder farmers and driving both local and export revenue. The state is Nigeria’s second-largest cocoa producer, exporting about 80,000 metric tons annually. With so much economic value tied to these crops, land has become a fiercely contested resource — and when speculators or large investors seek expansion, tensions often erupt among communities struggling for ownership and survival.

Climate change, Professor Raphael added, is compounding the problem. As farmlands yield less, people move in search of better land to farm and to graze, opening new fronts for conflict. “The land is shrinking as population grows, and poverty and lack of basic social structures make it worse.”

He believes the persistent conflict is also tied to weak governance and the failure of social systems to provide stability. “When the system works, people have hope,” he said. “Everybody struggles to survive. The quest to provide for yourself and your family is not easy, and that desperation drives conflict.”

The Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) similarly notes that environmental and land-use issues are increasingly among the most common triggers of rural conflicts in southern Nigeria, particularly boundary disputes.

From just a text message 

The early warning system was developed by PIND in 2015 to monitor the country’s signs of violence during the general election, before it was later deployed to communal conflicts. 

Through the platform, anyone can report incidents by sending a text message to 080 9936 2222 or 0912 233 4455, including details such as the location, date, and a brief description of the event. Once submitted, the report appears instantly on a web-based dashboard at PIND’s headquarters, where analysts verify and map signals across the Niger Delta. These reports help identify emerging hotspots, track patterns of unrest, and guide long-term peace interventions. 

These reports are shared with Partners for Peace (P4P), a PIND-run conflict management and peacebuilding network of grassroots volunteers spread across all nine Niger Delta states. Each report helps P4P chapters plan their local peace activities, which include mediation, dialogues, and sensitisation. 

“We now prepare our interventions based on the prevailing types of conflict in a given year,” Ukorebi Esien, P4P’s Cross River State Coordinator, said. “For instance, if in 2024 most of the signals we received from Cross River State indicated cult clashes or communal disputes, then in the following year, 2025, our interventions may be focused on addressing those issues.”

Several of these text messages have been sent since it was launched a decade ago.

But in Cross River, P4P went a step further.

They saw how quickly a quarrel could escalate and began training local peace actors, such as chiefs, youth leaders, and women’s groups, on how and why they should send that text message, but also on how to respond. 

That network helped Akiba and his colleagues to build an internal communication mechanism that allows them to alert one another instantly and intervene early.

“It has helped us to identify the signs of early tension and respond before any violent escalation in our communities,” said Akiba. He added that his community is grateful for it. “We in Akpap-Okoyong have a boundary issue with Okonotte, and we also house some persons from Ikot Offiong, which has made us look like a hostile community to the people of Oku Iboku.” The longstanding conflict between Oku Iboku in Akwa Ibom State and Ikot Offiong in Cross River State has been fueled by competing claims over land and fishing rights, leading to cycles of violence for over a century.

Akiba said Akpap-Okoyong now has about 40 trained responders who monitor early warning indicators like hate speech, sudden gatherings, or disputes across the over 60 villages, and report them through SMS while also engaging directly with village elders.

It was that system that alerted him that Sunday evening.

In Ikom, on the border with Cameroon,  similar outcomes are taking shape. Clement Nnagbo, the Traditional Head of Okosora Clan, said the training has transformed how people now seek justice. “More than twenty cases have been transferred from various courts, and within less than a month, each matter is resolved,” he said, noting that their alternative dispute resolution process is faster and far less expensive than going through the formal courts.

In Ugep, Yakurr Local Government Area, Usani Arikpo, a religious leader, has seen how easily tensions can spiral, and how sometimes, conflict starts from one thing and leads to another.  He recalled a recent incident that began as a cult clash but nearly turned into a communal crisis. “We saw the signs early,” he said. “Some cult boys from Ugep had gone to Idomi to support their faction there, but along the line, they were killed. The Ugep people felt it was deliberate, and things almost got out of hand. We had to step in, meet with the chiefs, women, and other stakeholders, and from that time, there has not been anything like that again.”

Tradition as strategy 

Sometimes peace is restored by dialogue and sealed with cultural rituals that carry moral weight.

In 2023, a long-brewing conflict between Ofatura and Ovonum in Obubra LGA reignited after years of distrust. “We went to assess the level of the conflict,” recalled Ukorebi, the P4P Coordinator in Cross River. “We met youth leaders, traditional rulers, and women groups, and after several discussions, both sides agreed to a peace pact.”

Both community heads signed an accord and embraced publicly, the first time in years they had sat together. “When you hold meetings like that, you must leave a memory that resonates,” Ukorebi said. “We wanted them to understand the depth of what they were involved in and the cost of violence.”

It was the same method that Akiba and his fellow chiefs deployed in Akpap-Okoyong. “We took both sides to the Ekpe shrine. There, they swore an oath never to fight again,” Akiba said. 

Not without challenges

Yet, sustaining peace is not without limitations. Volunteers often fund their own logistics, and  “transportation is expensive”, said Usani, stating that more could be achieved if they had the means to quickly mobilise and move into areas with conflict.

PIND did not respond to HumAngle’s messages regarding some of these challenges.

Government response has also been slow. “We have found out that the government is rather reactive and not proactive,” Ukorebi said, adding that some communities they had helped bring peace to are back to fighting. “I mentioned the Ofatura-Ovonum crisis: since 2024 till date, the state government has not seen any reason to revisit that document, despite all the efforts by P4P.”

“In that document, there are responsibilities: there is a part to play by the government, there is a part to be played by the communities, there is a part to be played by partners for peace to ensure that that peace we had worked for will remain permanently,” he told HumAngle. “But that has not been the case.”

Still, there are signs of resilience: Across the Niger Delta, P4P’s volunteer peace agents, now over 11,200 strong,  have documented more than 1,148 emerging conflicts that were nipped before turning violent.

Back in Akpap-Okoyong, Chief Akiba watches a group of children play in an open field in front of his compound, hopeful that they will grow up in a community where disputes are settled on a table of negotiation rather than with machetes.

This story was produced under the HumAngle Foundation’s Advancing Peace and Security through Journalism project, supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

I felt like a child again as I wandered down to the riverbank to look at crawdads.

“Oh, the L.A. River folks posted on Instagram about this, but I didn’t know they were right here,” my walking partner said.

Dozens of bright red crustaceans swam and fought and hid in the warm shallow water of the Glendale Narrows of the Los Angeles River. A Cooper’s hawk swooped down to grab a branch presumably for a nearby nest. A black-crowned night heron accidentally dropped its lunch, perhaps a frog, back into the water.

Crawdads, or crayfish, fight each other, eat and bask in the sun in the L.A. River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Later, I’d witness Canada geese arriving in formation before landing on the river for their evening dinner and rest.

In all honesty, I hadn’t expected such abundant life less than a quarter of a mile from the 5 Freeway. But that’s what you’ll discover along the sandy, soft bottom segments of the L.A. River where nature rejected concrete and instead built back life.

Jason Wise, an L.A.-based conservationist, was my walking partner who spotted the crawdaddies, as I was raised to call them in Oklahoma. I had asked Wise, who regularly hosts educational hikes, if we could walk along the river and explore one of its soft bottom segments.

Since moving to L.A., I’d wondered why certain parts of the river were lush and beautiful. My wife and I had biked a few times from Koreatown to the river trail, usually eating at Spoke Bicycle Cafe. Why did this segment look like an actual river and not the concrete flood channel featured in the 1978 film “Grease”?

Ducks stand on rocks in the sandy bottom of the Los Angeles River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

We’ll get to that precise answer, but first, a bit of geography and history.

The L.A. River has existed for thousands of years and was the site of Indigenous villages for more than 1,000 years. It is, in its current iteration, a 51-mile “engineered waterway” whose banks were channelized with concrete starting in 1938 and finished by 1960, according to the county public works department.

Three portions of the river, though, remain unpaved:

• The Sepulveda Basin in the San Fernando Valley.
• The Glendale Narrows, a 7.4-mile stretch through Glendale, Atwater Village, Elysian Park and Los Angeles.
• The Long Beach estuary.

Wise and I met at Elysian Valley Gateway Park, which provides access to the natural streambed.

As we watched its waters flow by, Wise explained that the L.A. River was a wild, free-flowing river that often changed course.

The Glendale Narrows area of the L.A. River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

For example, as Times columnist Patt Morrison pointed out: “From today’s downtown, it coursed west and southwest all over the Los Angeles Basin until around 1825, when another flood redirected it toward where it flows today, more or less south from the original pueblo.”

This was a problem for L.A.’s developers. And not only that, Wise said, but the river flooded seasonally throughout the 1930s. At the same time, L.A. was growing rapidly, with lots of money to be made in building industry and homes as close to the river as possible.

In 1938, L.A. experienced a great flood — which in today’s meteorological lingo, we’d explain as essentially back-to-back atmospheric rivers hitting in 4½ days, bringing about 16 inches of rain, which is on average how much the area gets in a year. At least 96 people died (although experts say the number is probably higher).

The flood was the impetus for controlling the river, especially given that officials wanted to keep building near it.

At that time, two plans emerged, Wise said. This moment, dear Wilder, would be a good one to correct if you perhaps have a time machine on hand.

A beautiful evening at the Glendale Narrows of the L.A. River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

In a report titled “Parks, Playgrounds and Beaches for the Los Angeles Region,” designers recommended the region create an “emerald necklace,” or a series of parks along waterways, including the L.A River, the Rio Hondo, the San Gabriel River, Ballona Creek and Compton Creek. Officials could engineer the river with slopes to better handle flooding, and parks would soak up water and replenish the water table.

Areas near the river still might flood, and “we might have to replace some picnic tables or a playground, but otherwise, the whole city has all these parks, and a connection to nature and our wild river that is actually the foundation of the city, the reason that L.A. exists,” Wise said.

We didn’t do that.

Instead, officials asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a faster, simpler (and, in other words, cheaper) solution, Wise said. “Not that it was cheap to dig up and concretize a river, but if you locked this into place … you can then develop right up to the edge,” Wise said.

But in certain places, including the Glendale Narrows, the plan didn’t work. The Glendale Narrows has a higher water table than other areas of the L.A. River, and the engineers realized the concrete wouldn’t set because of the high amount of water and springs bubbling up.

White-faced ibises mingle on rocks at the Glendale Narrows of the L.A. River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

With the soil exposed, seeds could take root, plants returned, and wildlife came back. The ecosystem, as best it could, rebounded.

“It was an amazing mistake,” Wise said of the Corps’ inability to lay concrete over the entire L.A. River. “I’m so grateful that the Army Corps screwed that up.”

And now, there’s momentum to rethink the landscape of our river’s design.

My first question about that was: “Would we have to tolerate flooding again?” Wise told me that’s a common misconception. For one, it’s arguably impossible to “rewild” the entire river.

“You can’t get rid of this right now because there are homes right there,” Wise said. “We can’t completely undo the mistakes of the past, but we can find a way to create a better future and learn from those mistakes. The best thing to do with a mistake is to learn from it and do things better. It’s harder now, but what can we do to bring some wild back?”

Geese and other birds float along the Glendale Narrows of the Los Angeles River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

A few days after my visit with Wise, I returned to the L.A. River for sunset. I parked again at Elysian Valley Gateway Park and walked about a third of a mile south to an area of the river where heaps of rocks make it easier to cross the still-concrete part of the river to reach the natural area.

And then for an hour, I stood in awe as a concert of birds performed their evening serenade. White-faced ibises stood perfectly balanced on rocks among the calm river. Great blue herons passed by overhead. American coots submerged themselves underwater in search of food. A few large fish popped up to eat bugs.

Then I heard honking. Not the kind from the nearby 5 Freeway, which for this moment in time, didn’t exist. Four Canada geese appeared above in formation, swooping down to land together on the water. They floated over to the bank, just 15 feet or so from me, where one goose stood watch, protecting its three flock members as they ate and rested. I felt lucky to witness that, like I was living in a Mary Oliver poem.

A Canada goose watches out for its flock members as they eat and rest on the L.A. River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

It grew darker, and I soon left — only to hear more honking as nine more geese landed.

On my way home, traffic felt less obnoxious. My empty fridge felt less of a problem. Even the Trader Joe’s parking lot left me unaffected. Instead, I felt connected to not only our river and our city, but to the humans around me. As Wise reminded me:

The L.A. River “is the foundation of the city. Nature is all around us, and it’s even there within the city. There should be more of it … and through that connection, we realize we are nature. We are also animals on this planet, that everything is connected. We’re all one big living, breathing organism. Nature is a conduit to the rest of community and supporting each other and building each other up and helping each other out.”

3 things to do

Children’s paintings of P-22, L.A.’s late lion king who lived in and around Griffith Park for more than a decade, at the 2022 P-22 Day Festival.

(Save LA Cougars)

1. Keep P-22’s memory alive in L.A. 🦁🕯️
The #SaveLACougars campaign will host its annual P-22 Day Festival from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday in Shane’s Inspiration (4800 Crystal Springs Drive) in Griffith Park. The event honors the legacy of P-22, a male mountain lion who inspired countless Angelenos into advocating for our local wildlife. Several local conservation and Indigenous groups will host tables with information about how attendees can get more involved in protecting our public lands. Guests can also meet the people behind the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, take home native plants, enjoy art, crafts and food-trucks and check out the latest P-22 merchandise. Learn more at savelacougars.org.

2. Prowl for the phantasmal in Pasadena
L.A. Fright Club, a horror-themed fitness group, will host its spooky hike club at 7 a.m. Sunday at the Lower Arroyo Seco trail. The group will meet at the trailhead in the San Pascual Stables parking lot (221 San Pascual Ave. in South Pasadena). Costumes are encouraged. Learn more at the group’s Instagram page.

3. Embrace the eerie in Elysian Park
We Explore Earth will host Forest Bridges Day Camp, a Halloween-themed community celebration, from noon to 8 p.m. Saturday in Elysian Park. Attendees can participate in guided hikes, workshops, pumpkin carving, cornhole and more. Participants should bring a blanket, camping chair and/or pillows for the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas” at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are available at eventbrite.com.

The must-read

Spanish mountaineer Kilian Jornet climbed 72 summits over 14,000 feet in the contiguous U.S. in 31 days this fall. Jornet is pictured here in the Sierra Nevada range known as the Normans 13, which connects 13 summits over 13,000 feet (3,962 meters).

(Andy Cochrane)

In just 31 days, Spanish mountaineer Kilian Jornet recently climbed all 72 summits in the contiguous United States that stand over 14,000 feet tall — a feat similar to climbing Mt. Whitney 2½ times per day, every day, for a month, writes Times staff writer Jack Dolan. Jornet’s journey included California’s “Norman’s 13,” which is 13 summits over 14,000 feet in remote alpine terrain between Lone Pine and Bishop. My first question, reading Jack’s piece was: “Why?” Jornet said he doesn’t do it for the glory. “I do these things because I love them, because they bring me joy and happiness, not because I think they’re very important,” he said.

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

For fans of one of California’s silliest native animals, I have great news! Reservations opened Monday for guided elephant seal tours at Año Nuevo State Park, which is about 6½ hours northwest of L.A. Every December, these massive sea mammals migrate to the beaches of Año Nuevo for their breeding and birthing season. There is fighting — drama! — along with lots of vocalizing and “galumphing,” the park said on its Instagram page. To reserve your spot for a tour, visit this website, and from the “category” dropdown menu, choose “guided seal walks” before choosing which day you’d like to go. Reservations are available 56 days (eight weeks) in advance of your desired walk date.

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.