I recently been to few places in Essex like Basildon, Billericay, Romford, etc and went to a lot of pubs, shops around the areas. I noticed that the people in these Essex areas tend to be more tanned than the average English people in other areas such as Merseyside, Manchester and the South. I saw a lot more darker features such as hair and eyes. I know Essex has the reputation of fake tanning but I noticed people in general, were darker than the average English, almost like Italian, Spanish, etc. People like David Gandy are from these areas. Also the footballer James Tomkins. So I was wondering, why do certain people in Essex look like this?
The very, very short version; Many volumes condensed into 10 lines.
The UK was settled many times in many ways. Anybody claiming to English to the Core is kidding themselves.
Your average UK dweller is a mongrel, a mix of everybody that came here in the last 10,000+ yrs. - and all the better for it.
There were two main direction of travel into the UK, all very slow obviously.
Firstly in a general NW direction from the Euphrates, Anatolia, Turkey, Europe up the danube and rhine and onto the south and east coasts.
Second, via Spain and Brittany on to the S.W. and West coast.
All these people and their genes came from and through sunnier climes. Hence the brown skin.
The further away from original source the paler you will be...add in to that the influx in the North and NW of the pale ginger type and there you have it.
Edit; rains more up north too