If you go to your local Garden Centre, they should have a range of plants on sale. You can plant such things as rosemary, thyme etc. safely until the end of the month, then start seeds of the more tender herbs like basil indoors or under glass next spring.

A warning about Thyme - where you live, I'm not sure how well it will survive over winter, particularly the more decorative forms. I find it dies out here in London, even though its supposed to be hardy, although that might be because the soil's heavy here and gets pretty damp during winter, so if your soil is light, then it might be okay.

I'm not far from Cambridgeshire (Hertfordshire), and have several varieties of Thyme in our clay soil. It survives the winter quite happily.

Interesting - I have no idea why it doesn't do well here in London then - its not that cold, so I assumed it must be the heavy soil... clearly not!

Herbs that will survive the winter are as follows:-
Rosemary ,Lavendar , Lemon Balm , Bay Tree, Thyme, Sage, Garden Mint, Chives
But if you want herbs for indoors try Basil , Parsley ,Coriander ,Chives.

For the indoor herbs keep them in the pots you can pick them when ever you want. I know ive put Chives for indoor and outdoor, but ive sometimes found that depending where your chives are outside they might die down but they will come up again next year.
But at least if you have a pot of them indoors you can sprinkle chopped chives on green salads and add them to potato salad.
I live in Essex and i think that you will find that Thyme will grow quite well in East Anglia.
I hope this will help you slc1.
A warning with the garden mint or any other types of mint, keep it well contained in a pot then it will NOT spread everywhere if planted in the ground.