Silk & Spies

This intriguing and entertaining tour for groups looking for a day out with a difference starts with beautiful silk designs, stops for lunch in one of the loveliest towns in the county and spends a fascinating afternoon immersed in the secret world of spies.

Meet our Guide in Braintree at 10-30am to buy morning refreshments. Silk production was kept under wraps by the Chinese for 3000 years until Marco Polo took the secret of its manufacture to Venice. In the 1890s Warner & Sons moved their workforce from London's Spitalfields to Braintree and employed leading artists including William Morris, Vanessa Bell and Graham Sutherland to produce designs. After time to buy morning coffee and biscuits the magic of this visit begins as every drawer and display case takes the visitor on an excitingly visual voyage of discovery to palaces, stately homes & National Trust properties, Ocean Liners and grand hotels.

We drive over to Maldon for lunch. En route you'll see the first Knights Templar site in England. Maldon IS a town of great charm and historical interest, provides lots of choices for lunch.

Our afternoon is all about the deadly tools of the superspy as we visit a quirky and fascinating private museum. Captain Peter Mason, a senior MI5 agent issued with a licence to kill, was a close pal of 007 author Ian Fleming and inspiration for James Bond. The gadgets he and his wife Pru, also a secret agent, used include guns diguised as a pen and a lipstick - the latter known as "the kiss of death". There is also a camera built into a pack of cigarettes and a brolly that injects poison pellets.

You'll also see the Morse code key and typewriter used by married KGB spies the Krogers who operated under cover as London booksellers during the 1960s. The museum also has the only surviving canoe of the Cockleshell Heroes of World War II. Ten brave and determined men paddled these flimsy canoes into enemy occupied France to carry out a costly but successful raid against German shipping and registered a British success at a time when there was not much to raise morale.

An unusual and entertaining day out concludes with tea and biscuits, included in the tour fee, before heading for home at 4-45pm.

There is minimal walking on this trip.

This tour is available Wednesdays to Saturdays, and is an especially good option for the colder months.

Price: Adults: £21.50      Seniors: £19.50

Coach Mileage: 25

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