Maldon itself sits at the base of the Blackwater Estuary, which has a cluster of important marshland sites further east, around the Salcott Channel. To the east stretches the farmland of the Dengie peninsula, fringed by Bradwell Shell Bank and a National Nature Reserve. The Dengie is sandwiched between the Blackwater Estuary and the Crouch Estuary to the south, which again has some important coastal marshland sites, plus a country park at Burnham.