growing wider and wider, till we come beyond Tilbury, when the flat country lyes six seven, or eight miles broad, and is justly said to be both unhealthy, and unpleasant.
However the lands are rich, and, as is observable, it is very good farming in the marshes, because the landlords let good penny-worths, for it being a place where every body cannot live those that venture it, will have encouragement, and indeed it is but reasonable they should.
Several little observations I made in this part of the county of Essex.
We saw passing from Barking to Dagenham, The famous breach, made by an inundation of the Thames, which was so great, as that it laid near 5000 acres of land under water, but which after near ten years lying under water, and being several times blown up has been at last effectually stopped by the application of Captain Perry; the gentleman, who for several years had been employed, in the Czar of Muscovy’s works, at Veronitza, on the River Don. This breach appeared now effectually made up, and they assured us, that the new work, where the breach was, is by much esteemed the strongest of all the sea walls in that level.
It was observable that great part of the lands in these levels, especially those on this side East Tilbury, are held by the farmers, cow-keepers, and grasing butchers who live in and near London, and that they are generally stocked (all the winter half year) with large fat sheep, (viz.) Lincolnshire and Leicestershire wethers, which they buy in Smithfield in September and October, when the Lincolnshire and Leicestershire grasiers sell off their stock, and are kept here till Christmas, or Candlemas, or thereabouts, and tho’ they are not made at all fatter here, than they were when bought in, yet the farmer, or butcher finds very good advantage in it, by the difference of the price of mutton between Michaelmas, when ’tis cheapest, and Candlemas when ’tis dearest; this is what the butchers value themselves upon, then they tell us at the market, that it is right marsh-mutton.
In the bottom of these marshes, and close to the edge of the rivers stands the strong fortress of Tilbury, called Tilbury Fort, which may justly be looked upon, as the key of the river of Thames, and consequently the key of the city of London: It is a regular fortification, the design of it, was a pentagon, but the water bastion as it would have been call’d, was never built; the plan was laid out by Sir Martin Beckman, chief engineer to King Charles II, who also designed the works at Sheerness. The esplanade of the fort is very large, and the bastions, the largest of any in England, the foundation is laid so deep, and piles under that, driven down two on end of one another, so far, till they were assur’d they were below the channel of the river, and that the piles, which were shod with iron, entered into the solid chalk rock adjoyning to, or reaching from the chalk-hills on the other side. These bastions settled considerably at first, as did also part of the curtain, the great quantity of earth that was brought to fill them up, necessarily, requiring to be made solid by time; but they are now firm as the rocks of chalk which they came from, and the filling up one of these bastions, as I have been told by good hands, cost the Government 6000l. being filled with chalk-rubbish fetched from the chalk-pits at North-Fleet, just above Gravesend.
The works to the land side are compleat; the bastions are faced with brick. There is a double ditch, or moat, the innermost part of which is 180 foot broad, there is a good counter-scarp, and a covered way marked out, with ravelins, and tenailles, but they are not raised a second time after their first settling.
On the land side there are also two small redoubts of brick, but of very little strength, for the chief strength of this fort on the land side consists in this, that they are able to lay the whole level under water, and so to make it impossible for an enemy to make any approaches to the fort that way.
On the side next the river, there is a very strong curtain, with a noble gate called the water-gate in the middle, and that ditch is pallisadoed. At the place where the water-bastion was designed to be built, and which by the plan should run wholly out into the river, so to flank the two curtains on each side; I say, in the place where it should have been, stands a high tower, which they tell us was built in Queen Elizabeth’s time, and was called the Block-house; the side next the water is vacant.
Before this curtain above and below the said vacancy, is a platform in the place of a counterscarp, on which are planted 106 pieces of cannon, generally all of them carrying from 24 to 46 pound ball; a battery, so terrible, as well imports the consequence of that place: Besides which, there are smaller pieces planted between, and the bastions and curtain also are planted with guns, so that they must be bold fellows who will venture in the biggest ships the world has heard of, to pass such a battery, if the men appointed to serve the guns, do their duty like stout fellows, as becomes them.
The present government of this important place is under the prudent administration of the Right Honourable the Lord Newbrugh.
From hence, there is nothing for many miles together remarkable, but a continued level of unhealthy marshes, called, the Three Hundreds, till we come before Leigh, and to the mouth of the River Chelmer, and Black-water. These rivers united make a large firth, or inlet of the sea, which by Mr. Camden is called Idumanum Fluvium; but by our fishermen and seamen, who use it as a port, ’tis called Maiden-Water.
In this inlet of the sea is Osey or Osyth Island, commonly called Oosy Island, so well known by our London men of pleasure, for the infinite number of wild-fowl, that is to say, duck, mallard, teal and widgeon, of which there are such vast flights, that they tell us the island, namely the creek, seems covered with them, at certain times of the year, and they go from London on purpose for the pleasure of shooting; and indeed often come home very well loaden with game. But it must be remembred too, that those gentlemen who are such lovers of the sport, and go so far for it, often return with an Essex ague on their backs, which they find a heavier load than the fowls they have shot.
’Tis on this shoar, and near this creek, that the greatest quantity of fresh fish is caught, which supplies not this country only, but London markets also: On the shoar beginning a little below Candy Island, or rather below Leigh Road, there lies a great shoal or sand called the Black Tayl, which runs out near three leagues into the sea due east; at the end of it, stands a pole or mast, set up by the Trinity-House men of London, whose business is, to lay buoys, and set up sea marks for the direction of the sailors; this is called Shoo-Bacon, from the point of land where this sand begins, which is call’d Shooberry-Ness, and that from the town of Shooberry, which stands by it. From this sand, and on the edge of Shooberry, before it, or south-west of it, all along, to the mouth of Colchester Water, the shoar is full of shoals and sands, with some deep channels between; all which are so full of fish, that not only the Barking fishing-smacks come hither to fish, but the whole shoar is full of small fisher-boats in very great numbers, belonging to the villages and towns on the coast, who come in every tide with what they take; and selling the smaller fish in the country, send the best and largest away upon horses, which go night and day to London market.
N. B. I am the more particular in my remark on this place, because in the course of my travels the reader will meet with the like in almost every place of note through the whole island, where it will be seen how this whole kingdom, as well the people, as the land, and even the sea, in every part of it, are employ’d to furnish something, and I may add, the best of every thing, to supply the city of London with provisions; I mean by provisions, corn, flesh, fish, butter, cheese, salt, fewel, timber, &c. and cloths also; with every thing necessary for building, and furniture for their own use, or for trades; of all which in their order.
On this shoar also are taken the best and nicest, tho’ not the largest oysters in England; the spot from whence they have their common appellation is a little bank called Woelfleet, scarce to be called an island, in the mouth of the River Crouch, now called Crooksea Water; but the chief place where the said oysters are now had, is from Wyvenhoo and the shears adjacent whither they are brought by the fishermen, who take them at the mouth of, that they call, Colchester Water, and about the sand they call the Spits, and carry them up to Wyvenhoo, where they are kid in beds or pits on the shoar to feed, as they call it; and then being barrelled up, and carried to Colchester, which is but three miles off, they are sent to London by land, and are, from thence, called Colchester oysters.
The chief sort of other fish which they carry from this part of the shoar to London, are soals, which they take sometimes exceeding large, and yield a very good price at London market: Also sometimes midling