Tour Through the Eastern Counties of England | Page 4

in England, the foundation is laid so deep,
and piles under that, driven down two an end of one another, so far, till
they were assured they were below the channel of the river, and that the
piles, which were shed with iron, entered into the solid chalk rock
adjoining 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 6,000 pounds,
being filled with chalk rubbish fetched from the chalk pits at Northfleet,
just above Gravesend.
The work to the land side is complete; the bastions are faced with brick.
There is a double ditch, or moat, the innermost part of which is 180 feet
broad; there is a good counterscarp, 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 the ditch is palisadoed. 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 of 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 twenty-four to forty-six 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
Blackwater. 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, it is called Malden 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 laden with game. But it must be
remembered 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.
It is on this shore, 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 shore, beginning a little below Candy Island, or rather
below Leigh Road, there lies a great shoal or sand called the Black Tail,
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 Shoe Beacon, from the point of land where this