The Asheldham Centre is undoubtedly a gem. A large proportion of our 1,500 clients each year say that there is something very special about staying here. There are many unique aspects to staying at Asheldham. It is not often that you get to use a 1000 year-old building as your home for a few days. Neither can you easily find such remoteness in Essex or eastern England. There are no shops, no pubs, and very few houses. Some may say this is a disadvantage! However our clients keep coming back again and again.

Despite being only 20 metres above sea level, the landscape to the south-east of the Centre is at sea level so the views are huge, with ‘big skies’ and no settlements in sight. Quiet roads and vast fields with the North Sea in view, Essex weatherboard cottages, and grand old farm-houses complete the scenery.

We have also, quite uniquely, Roman roads out here built between fields all of identical size - granted to retired Roman soldiers pensioned off from duties in Colchester 1800 years ago. Long before the Romans came to the area, Asheldham was populated by Iron Age settlers who built their own fort and village around the 5th Century BC. This is indeed an ancient landscape.

Into the 21st Century - as an organisation and a charity we are always developing the Centre. Many different types of groups use the building in the course of the year and we have as part of the current ten-year plan a major programme of redevelopment in building a specialist wing solely for our disabled clients. This, it is hoped, is to be mirror-imaged with a field studies wing and new entrance on the east side of the northeast part of the church.