Wrabness is a small village with a long history and, on a bright day, wide views north across the Stour Estuary to Suffolk. Today, a cold shroud deadens the coast. In the churchyard, a small bell house squats square amongst the headstones; it was constructed as temporary measure after the bell tower toppled off the church. A testament to the priorities of the 17th century and the pragmatism of ensuing generations. Down the narrow lane, past a small crop of holiday caravans, the beach with its motley fringe of summer houses and collapsing cliffs shrouded in bare woodland, is forlorn and empty save for a few hardy souls walking with hunched shoulders and hands dug deep in pockets. At the edge of the tide, the curlews and oystercatchers are similarly subdued and silent in the cold. Across the fields from the village, the extraordinary ‘Julie’s House’ or ‘A House for Essex’, designed by Grayson Perry, stands like a foreign object plundered from a more ebullient and liberated world.