Tour Through the Eastern Counties of England | Page 3

market from the North Seas, and other remote places on the
coast of Great Britain, by the new-built sloops called fish-pools, have
not been able to do anything but what their fishing-smacks are able on
the same occasion to perform. These fishing-smacks are very useful
vessels to the public upon many occasions; as particularly, in time of
war they are used as press- smacks, running to all the northern and
western coasts to pick up seamen to man the navy, when any
expedition is at hand that requires a sudden equipment; at other times,
being excellent sailors, they are tenders to particular men of war; and
on an expedition they have been made use of as machines for the
blowing up of fortified ports and havens; as at Calais, St. Malo, and
other places.
This parish of Barking is very large, and by the improvement of lands
taken in out of the Thames, and out of the river which runs by the town,
the tithes, as the townsmen assured me, are worth above 600 pounds
per annum, including, small tithes. Note.--This parish has two or three
chapels of ease, viz., one at Ilford, and one on the side of Hainault
Forest, called New Chapel.
Sir Thomas Fanshaw, of an ancient Roman Catholic family, has a very
good estate in this parish. A little beyond the town, on the road to

Dagenham, stood a great house, ancient, and now almost fallen down,
where tradition says the Gunpowder Treason Plot was at first contrived,
and that all the first consultations about it were held there.
This side of the county is rather rich in land than in inhabitants,
occasioned chiefly by the unhealthiness of the air; for these low marsh
grounds, which, with all the south side of the county, have been saved
out of the River Thames, and out of the sea, where the river is wide
enough to be called so, begin here, or rather begin at West Ham, by
Stratford, and continue to extend themselves, from hence eastward,
growing wider and wider till we come beyond Tilbury, when the flat
country lies 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 pennyworths,
for it being a place where everybody 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.
1. 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 5,000 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.
2. 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 grazing 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 graziers sell off their stock, and are kept here till
Christmas, or Candlemas, or thereabouts; and though 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 it is cheapest, and Candlemas,
when it is dearest; this is what the butchers value themselves upon,
when they tell us at the market that it is right marsh-mutton.
3. In the bottom of these Marshes, and close to the edge of the river,
stands the strong fortress of Tilbury, called Tilbury Fort, which may
justly be looked upon as the key of the River 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 called, 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