South of the built-up town, Pitsea opens into a very different landscape of low-lying marshes, creeks and open country. This environment is essential to understanding the settlement's history because old Pitsea developed at the head of a creek connected with the Thames estuary.
Pitsea Creek once had greater practical importance to the rural and industrial landscape than it appears to have today. Waterways and wharves later helped support industrial activity on the marshes, while the creek remains part of the wider estuarine environment.
Wat Tyler Country Park occupies land with several layers of history. The area was used for explosives manufacture from the late nineteenth century and subsequently for military purposes. Earthworks and surviving structures preserve traces of this unusual past.
After the industrial and military eras ended, the land was eventually transformed into a country park. This gave Pitsea a large public landscape where industrial archaeology, marshland habitat and recreation exist side by side.
Wat Tyler is suitable for people interested in walking, wildlife, photography, local history or simply open space. Its greatest historical attraction is that the modern park does not completely erase what came before: the landscape still contains clues to the explosives and military periods.