Brexit has made payment of import duties something of a hot topic these days, but it is nothing new. Governments have always tried to levy duties on imported goods, and traders and customers have always tried to evade paying them, particularly in times when these duties have generally been seen as excessive.

This was particularly true in the 18th Century – expensive foreign wars led governments to levy punitive taxes, the duty on tea for example being nearly 70 per cent of its original cost.

Collection of duties was done through local custom houses at ports. These were bureaucratic and clumsy and subject to corruption. This, plus the strong local support for smuggling, meant that the law was frequently several steps behind the smugglers.

Essex's coast didn't help – with many tidal inlets, marshy and misty surroundings and a reputation for malaria, it was ideal for keeping strangers out and allowing local people free communications with small ships trading from the Low Countries. An additional advantage of the creeks was that if a revenue cutter approached, the smuggler crew could simply dump their goods overboard in the saltmarsh and retrieve it at their leisure later.

Maldon has a surviving Custom house - most of these date from later periods when revenue collection was better funded. Maldon's is on Market Hill, and is a fine 16th Century house extended in Georgian times, and used by the revenue service from 1817 before once more becoming a private house.

Richard Platt, author of 'Smugglers' Britain' explains that there were many isolated spots away from the custom houses where contraband could be landed.

Bradwell already had a long tradition of smuggling dating back to the 14th Century. The Green Man was a favourite spot for smugglers to gather, while St Peter's Chapel nearby was used both for storage of goods and for signalling. North Fambridge was also a popular landing place, and the Ferryboat Inn is a reminder that there was also a ferry to the opposite shore. It is also reputed to have a secret tunnel used by smugglers.

The Chequers Inn at Goldhanger was another smugglers haunt, with Goldhanger smugglers floating rafts of spirit casks down the Blackwater and landing them at Mill Beach. Again, there are legends of tunnels in the village.

Further afield, Tollesbury was remote enough for smuggling to be carried out virtually in plain sight. Mersea Island was also popular, with the Dog and Pheasant, The Ship, and The Victory pubs all linked to the trade. Salcott-cum-Virley was a favourite landing place.

In 1822, various land and sea-based revenue services were united in The Coastguard Service, and the law gradually began to catch up with the smugglers.

Nowadays, smuggling has taken a darker turn, with drugs and people-trafficking changing it from a popular community activity into the altogether different arena of international organised crime.