Maldon (/ˈmɔːldən/, locally /ˈmɒldən/) is a town and civil parish on the Blackwater estuary in Essex, England.

From 958 there was a royal mint issuing coins for the late Anglo-Saxon and early Norman kings.

The town still had the mint and supplied a warhorse and warship for the king's service in return for its privileges of self-government.

[7] The town's All Saints' Church, unique in England in having a triangular tower,[8] dates from around this period.

[9] There were strong urban traditions, with two members elected to the Commons and three guilds which hosted lavish religious plays until they were suppressed by Puritans in 1576.

At the bottom are depictions of George Washington, the landing of the Mayflower, the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Statue of Liberty.

During World War II, Maldon was featured in the German invasion plan for Britain, Operation Sea Lion.

The plan called for the Germans to advance to a line between Maldon and the River Severn after they had landed in the southern coast of England.

Essex is a county built on London Clay, overlain with pockets of gravel deposited by riparian action; the lowest land is made up of river alluvium and salt marsh.

[14] Hythe Quay at the confluence of the Chelmer and Blackwater, which flanks the northern edge of the town, was an important port and Cooks Yard remains significant for Thames barges.

Today, the nearest railway stations to Maldon are Hatfield Peverel, Witham and North Fambridge.

Regular bus services in and around the town are operated primarily by First Essex and Hedingham; key routes include the 31 from Chelmsford, the 75 from Colchester and the 90 from Witham.

Some ten to fifteen of the surviving fleet count Maldon as their home port, and many others are regular visitors alongside at the Quay.

[24] Bensusan's stories recall a lost way of life among the towns and villages in the area, and along the local coastline and marshland.

Maldon has been the setting for numerous television productions, including Lawless Heart (2001) starring Bill Nighy, and BBC1's The Murder Game (2003) where numerous Blackwater Estuary locations were used including Green's Flour Mill at the bottom of Market Hill and Steeple Marshes.

In H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (1898); Maldon is the town from which the narrator's brother and two female companions manage to escape across the Channel.

Maldon and its clock tower are featured in the young adult novel Timekeeper by Tara Sim (2016).

Maldon is the hometown of two Marvel Comics superheroes: Brian Braddock, the original Captain Britain, and his twin sister Betsy Braddock, longtime member of the X-Men as "Psylocke" and Brian's eventual successor as Captain Britain.

Recent improvements to the ground include a dual-lane enclosed all-weather net facility.

Overseas players from Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka have coached cricket in local primary schools as part of the "ECB Chance to Shine" programme.

[31] Private David Embleton (1853–1912) won a Victoria Cross, in his army name of Frederick Corbett, in the Arabi Pasha Rebellion in Egypt on 5 August 1882.

John Cook (1918–1984) was a prolific 20th century Anglo-American composer, organist and church musician.

Myra Sadd Brown (1872–1938), Suffragette, women's rights activist and internationalist was born in the town.

He was born in Langford Grove, Maldon, inherited the title Baron Rayleigh in 1873 and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1904, in part for discovering the inert gas argon.