Maldon mud race

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The Maldon Mud Race is a comparatively recent edition to the town's life. First started in the 1970s and largely inspired by Neil Gowlett, regular drinkers at the Queen's Head public house, ran across the river Blackwater to a waiting barrel of beer, consumed a pint and ran back. The first one back, naturally, won the race. Some however considered Neil and his younger brother David to be the true winners as they stayed with the barrel and only returned after they had made a sizeable dent to its contents.

The race can only take place when the tide is low enough to allow participents to run across safely. The Blackwater mud is notable for its strong smell - hence the Mud Race - and participents were required to be hosed down by Enid, the Pub's landlady before being allowed anywhere near the bar. In its second year, and whilst it was still an event for Queen's Head regulars, Paddy Mulville easily won having worked out that tracking up-river, rather than in a straight line allowed him to run across a relatively mud-free route. Paddy richly deserved his victory but his route was subsequently banned.

By now the Mud Race was becoming well known and in the third year attendance increased dramatically, to the disgust of the pub's regulars and the delight of Butts, the Queen's Head's landlord.

The Mud Race is now a well organised and large-scale event run by external agencies. The barrel of beer has long since disappeared. Neil Gowlett and Paddy Mulville have also sadly departed. The race could only have been developed and made possible by these delightful, remarkable characters.

Assumptions made by some that the Mud Race is a Medieval tradition are ill-founded. The reality is that for a period in the early 1970s, the Queen's Head pub in Maldon was a wonderful place to relax and drink. It had true characters and its like will never be seen again.

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