The Bronze Age covers a period in man's history roughly 1000 to 2000 years BC following on from the Stone Ages when man learnt to smelt bronze.

The technique was believed to have been brought by the Beaker People who migrated to the Eastern Coast of UK from Normandy in France.

Bronze not only allowed more sophisticated tools and weapons but for the first time it allowed decorative items like broaches as well as embellishment on weapons.

Eastern Essex provided a home for bronze age man although given the shorter period of the age there have been many fewer artefacts found than those for the stone age.

Bronze age landing stages have been found on the Blackwater at Mayland and on the Crouch at Bridgemarsh Island indicating a use of the rivers for fishing and possibly trade in the bronze age. The landing stage at Bridgemarsh Island also has indications of wood being laid on the approach to the landing stage which may have been a way of beating the effects of the river mud in this area.

This use of the River is also indicated by recovery of a bronze age oar on the opposite bank of the Crouch at Hullbridge.

 Items recovered include

Althorne

Remains of a structure with 5 posts. The use of the structure is unknown.

Asheldham Camp

Bronze age pottery

Bradwell on Sea

This nice Bronze Age ring dated as 1100BC-750BC was found at Bradwell in 1897 and is now at the British Museum.

Burnham on Crouch

In 1976 men working on a sewer trench in Dorset Road, Burnham on Crouch found human bones and bronze age pottery in undisturbed clay about 8 feet from the surface.

Six axes which were so fine that they are now in the British Museum

St Lawrence

Fine arrowhead and whetstone with hour glass markings