Essex Fire called to tackle early morning barn blaze in...

Firefighters tackled an early morning fire which engulfed a barn to the rear of the White Horse pub.A crew from Burnham, one from Tillingham and another from South Woodham Ferrers arrived at North Street just after 5.30am this morning (December 11).On arrival the incident commander reported that the barn - which measured five metres by five metres - was completely alight.Using two hose reel jets and two main jets, crews had extinguished the blaze by 7am, with firefighters remaining at the scene...

PICTURES: City of Chelmsford, Sky's the Limit

Gallery created by Chris_Rushton

The best places to buy your Christmas tree in Essex

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PICTURES: Farleigh Hospice Light up a life service in Braintree

Gallery created by Chris_Rushton

Wonky Christmas tree gets the chop

A Christmas tree that tilted so much it was compared to the Leaning Tower of Pisa is taken down due to safety fears.

Essex customers save £1m in energy auction

MORE THAN 300,000 people have saved a combined £1 million after joining an Essex County Council-supported collective energy scheme, with one man shaving £1,000 off his fuel bill.Now in its third year, the Essex Energy Switch launched Monday and is part of a scheme that sees people sign up to bulk-buy electricity to secure lower rates from energy companies.The average person saves £263 per year, but 77-year-old Robert Manning, from Chelmsford, saved nearly four times that...

How to pick the perfect Christmas tree

There's an ongoing debate at the Chronicle about when to dust off the Christmas decorations and pick out a tree. Some of us have the lights twinkling from today (December 1, others wait until a week before to give their home a Christmas spruce-up.But there's one thing we all agree on: it's damned hard work finding the perfect tree.From firs that seemed green until the needles suddenly dropped off to pungent-smelling pines that made their way straight to the top, we've all got tree horror...