Tour Through the Eastern Counties of England | Page 2

Leyton, Leytonstone, Walthamstow, Woodford,
Wanstead, and the towns of West Ham, Plaistow, Upton, etc. In all
which places, or near them (as the inhabitants say), above a thousand
new foundations have been erected, besides old houses repaired, all
since the Revolution; and this is not to be forgotten too, that this
increase is, generally speaking, of handsome, large houses, from 20
pounds a year to 60 pounds, very few under 20 pounds a year; being
chiefly for the habitations of the richest citizens, such as either are able
to keep two houses, one in the country and one in the city; or for such
citizens as being rich, and having left off trade, live altogether in these
neighbouring villages, for the pleasure and health of the latter part of
their days.
The truth of this may at least appear, in that they tell me there are no
less than two hundred coaches kept by the inhabitants within the
circumference of these few villages named above, besides such as are

kept by accidental lodgers.
This increase of the inhabitants, and the cause of it, I shall enlarge upon
when I come to speak of the like in the counties of Middlesex, Surrey,
&c, where it is the same, only in a much greater degree. But this I must
take notice of here, that this increase causes those villages to be much
pleasanter and more sociable than formerly, for now people go to them,
not for retirement into the country, but for good company; of which,
that I may speak to the ladies as well as other authors do, there are in
these villages, nay, in all, three or four excepted, excellent conversation,
and a great deal of it, and that without the mixture of assemblies,
gaming-houses, and public foundations of vice and debauchery; and
particularly I find none of those incentives kept up on this side the
country.
Mr. Camden, and his learned continuator, Bishop Gibson, have
ransacked this country for its antiquities, and have left little unsearched;
and as it is not my present design to say much of what has been said
already, I shall touch very lightly where two such excellent antiquaries
have gone before me; except it be to add what may have been since
discovered, which as to these parts is only this: That there seems to be
lately found out in the bottom of the Marshes (generally called
Hackney Marsh, and beginning near about the place now called the
Wick, between Old Ford and the said Wick), the remains of a great
stone causeway, which, as it is supposed, was the highway, or great
road from London into Essex, and the same which goes now over the
great bridge between Bow and Stratford.
That the great road lay this way, and that the great causeway landed
again just over the river, where now the Temple Mills stand, and passed
by Sir Thomas Hickes's house at Ruckolls, all this is not doubted; and
that it was one of those famous highways made by the Romans there is
undoubted proof, by the several marks of Roman work, and by Roman
coins and other antiquities found there, some of which are said to be
deposited in the hands of the Rev. Mr. Strype, vicar of the parish of
Low Leyton.
From hence the great road passed up to Leytonstone, a place by some
known now as much by the sign of the "Green Man," formerly a lodge
upon the edge of the forest; and crossing by Wanstead House, formerly
the dwelling of Sir Josiah Child, now of his son the Lord Castlemain

(of which hereafter), went over the same river which we now pass at
Ilford; and passing that part of the great forest which we now call
Hainault Forest, came into that which is now the great road, a little on
this side the Whalebone, a place on the road so called because the
rib-bone of a great whale, which was taken in the River Thames the
same year that Oliver Cromwell died, 1658, was fixed there for a
monument of that monstrous creature, it being at first about
eight-and-twenty feet long.
According to my first intention of effectually viewing the sea- coast of
these three counties, I went from Stratford to Barking, a large
market-town, but chiefly inhabited by fishermen, whose smacks ride in
the Thames, at the mouth of their river, from whence their fish is sent
up to London to the market at Billingsgate by small boats, of which I
shall speak by itself in my description of London.
One thing I cannot omit in the mention of these Barking fisher- smacks,
viz., that one of those fishermen, a very substantial and experienced
man, convinced me that all the pretences to bringing fish alive to
London