Paper Mill Lock Tearooms — Restaurant in Chelmsford

Beautiful afternoon spent at Papermill Lock with a bite to eat after.

The volunteer guys running the boat trips are super nice and give alot of info when your cruising up the waterway, the trips operate from 11am-3pm on the hour every hour. which was lovely. Boatvtrips procedure very sensibly too well worth doing. And will be looking to foing the 2 hr cruise with afternoon tea! These can be booked over the phone by calling papermill locks office.

Speaking of tea we stopped after and was looking forward to having a ploughman's at the tea rooms as I saw them in people's pictures but they've sadly stopped doing them now. The only things on the menu now are Sandwiches/Toasties and cakes. Soft drinks can be purchased but are a tad pricey with a small 500ml bottle of drink being £2.90!

The sandwiches are still nice though. Only food purchased at the Tea Room may be eaten there and the toilets are for thier customers only.

One stop you have to do is at the ice cream stand past the Tea Room the ice cream is locally produced and gorgeous. With speciality flavours at different times.

Parking is super easy next door to the water way providing the field is open call the paper mill waterways number on Google if it's been wet to check when u book your boat trip or the Tea Room regularly updates if the field is going to be closed on uts facebook page. The car park is closed...

Visited this place in June 2019. Recommended by yoga teacher. Definitely worth going. Had a coffee here, their machine unfortunately wasn't working so could only have drip coffee, tea or a cold drink. Sat outside near the canal. Beautiful view (lots of English type food available like cream tea and ploughmans crunchy french stick) Walked up and down the canal and also up to a church through a corn (wheat?) Field, the church was locked but you could go inside to get leaflets, and there was a graveyard outside the church. Lots of wildlife here, many ducks. Bridges to cross. Sat by the canal and put feet in the water, so warm and relaxing, people walking their dogs. Some fishing. Some going up and down the canal in canoe. A boat was available to book at the front of the canal near the tea room. There is a walk online if you type in paper mill lock walk, and it's about 3 miles and describes in detail a lovely walk. Carpark is tearoom patrons only and closes at 17:30 and if you do not go by that time the gate closes and you will be locked in overnight, lol, so watch out for this. It was dry and not muddy when we went, can be muddy if it's been raining. I loved this place, would visit again and...

It is a lovely location and have been coming here every so often over the years. However, my last visit will probably be the last.

Upon arrival to their car park we immediately had a member of staff run up to us asking if we were going to be ordering from the tea room. We were then told to register our number plate with the front counter for a max of 2 hour parking (not a problem). Two people in my group then went to use the toilet after eating - both were confronted by staff asking if they were customers. I get that they are clearly having issues with river boat users etc using the facilities but 1. is this not to be expected on a public path known for heavy footfall and 2. how does this make customers feel being constantly questioned? They were handing out fines to vehicles so clearly the number plate system is working!

The majority of the food is nice but I had the cream tea and was really disappointed. They are all pre made and they use whipped cream rather than clotted which is a shame. It just looked a lot better than it tasted.

I’m all for supporting small businesses but I really think they need to re-evaluate some things here so as not to discourage...