least were snubbed. The loss of £4,000,000 (besides the cost of its dispersion) was as nothing, for was the Thames not purified between the bridges, so much so as to enable steamboat passengers to enjoy a sail in warm weather without the disgusting dangers of noisome smells from a malodorous stream? The first serious challenge of dissent offered to this assumed happy condition of things, and which somewhat disturbed the equanimity of the Board and its engineers, proceeded from the River Thames Conservancy, which, from a carefully prepared river chart and innumerable soundings, showed that mud-banks of an abnormal character were being formed, and that these were attributable to deposits from the Crossness and Barking sewer discharges. Not withstanding the apparent accuracy of these asseverations, proceeding from an important body, the whole affair was speedily settled by the Board proving, from its own and independent engineering evidence, that the very idea of such a state of things was absolutely preposterous. The River Thames Conservators did not need to be apprehensive of stoppage to navigation, for the millions of tons of sewage matter pumped into the river Thames in the course of the year was sent away, by a happy condition of natural influences, to seaward, where its baneful and dangerous character would be utterly destroyed. The contentions of the Metropolitan Board have been unavoidably persistent as well as consistent, for it is invariably argued, and with much plausible appearance of reason, that all the filth of London, through its agency, is rendered harmless and innocuous, and that neither water, air, land, or sea can be injuriously interfered with, in consequence of its system of drainage. A body of undoubted importance, entrusted with an onerous task, was naturally treated with much forbearance in the past; for during the early years of its existence much allowance had to be made for the novelty of dealing in so comprehensive a manner with a leviathan undertaking such as the disposal of London's sewage. Germs of disease deposited on the river sides and at the bottom of the stream are simply storehouses for future supplies of forces charged with danger and death, the natural result of the collection of London's sewage into vast longitudinal sewers, which at intervals may be dammed back to meet tidal or other exigencies, and which, when so retarded must push back with force the gases produced from the accumulation and churning of such varied qualities of filth. gas, as it is now called, under such circumstances, readily escapes from the sources of its generation, and with its deadly influences and surroundings permeates the dwellings with which the system of London drainage so effectually entangles the homes of the ratepayers. New types of disease, frequently baffling the skill of the most accomplished physicians, are the result of such baneful contamination from a source which is difficult to control. The main drainage system of London (and by its example and teachings provincial cities and towns as well) has created new professions, in whose ranks special experts have risen up to grapple with dangers and inconveniences before unknown." The drainage system of London, on the north side of the Thames, comprises the High Level, the Middle Level, the Low Level, and the Western District Sewers, together with the Outfall at Barking Creek. The High Level drains Hampstead, Highgate, Kentish Town, Highbury, Stoke Newington, Hackney, and passes under Victoria Park to Old Ford; its length is about nine miles. The Middle Level runs by way of Kensal Green, Kensington Park, Notting Hill, Bayswater, Oxford Street, and so under a number of minor streets, to Old Ford, being about twelve miles long. The Low Level commences near Pimlico, and will pass along under the Thames Embankment to Blackfriars, and thence through the City and Whitechapel to West Ham. The Western District Sewers drain Acton, Hammersmith, Fulham, Chelsea, &c., on a plan different from that of the main drainage in other localities. The Outfall, an immense work, six miles long, continues the Upper and Middle Level Sewers from Old Ford to West Ham, and all the three sewers thence to Barking Creek, where we now leave it. At the mouth of the creek, on the east side, are a powder-magazine, a coastguard station, and some large factories. It is mentioned as a notorious fact by Campbell, in his "Political Survey of Great Britain,” that the drainage and reclaiming of the fens and marshes along our rivers was principally the work of the clergy, who in the Saxon times were the most learned and the most wealthy order in the country. And there is no part of England where such qualifications were more in demand than along the banks of the Lea and the Thames, in the neighbourhood of London. Ripple Side, Barking-Ripple Castle-Extent and Boundaries of Dagenham-Census Returns-The Village-Church-Parslowes-ValenceDagenham Breach-Discovery of a "Moorlog"-The River Walls of the Thames-Dagenham Lake-Its Proposed Conversion into a Dock-Failure of the Scheme-Origin of the Ministerial Fish Dinner. BEYOND Barking Level the land immediately abut- | fields and market-gardens. It is a long, straggling ting upon the Thames is mostly a dreary marsh, village, made up of rows of small cottages, and crossed and intersected by straight dykes and slug- one or two houses of a better class, with the ordigish pools, but further inland are broad stretches nary admixture of general shops, &c. The church, of pasture-land, serving as an admirable grazing- which stands near the eastern end of the street, ground for cattle. The roadway running eastward is dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, and consists from Barking towards Rainham, for the first mile of chancel, with north aisle, nave, and an embattled or two, till past the high ground whereon stands tower at the western end, surmounted by a slated Eastbury House, is called Ripple Side. A square spire, and containing a peal of six bells, put up in brick-built house by the roadside, near the com- the early part of the reign of George the Third. mencement of Dagenham parish, erected about a The stone-work of the tower is ancient, but has century ago, is somewhat pretentiously named been partly encased with brick and otherwise Ripple Castle, doubtless on account of the taste altered, whilst on an arch above the doorway is of the builder having led him to ornament its carved the inscription: "Wm. Mason, architect, parapet with battlements, and to flank the front of 1800." The chancel and aisle date from the thirthe house with circular towers pierced with narrow teenth century. The nave was rebuilt, and the loopholes, but it is a poor imitation of a castellated remainder of the church in part "restored" by a structure, at best. brief in 1800. But the restoration was not satisfactory; at all events, the building was again thoroughly "restored" in 1878, the walls of the chancel being refaced, the floor of the church lowered, open benches substituted for the oldfashioned "pews," the north gallery taken down, and the ceilings throughout fresh plastered, and painted with a flowing leaf pattern. During these repairs and alterations, the original altar-slab, bearing the five marks symbolical of the wounds of Our Saviour, was discovered; it has been replaced on the present table. The remains of an ancient piscina, which had been bricked up and obscured by plastering, was also brought to light, and has been repaired. Dagenham, which is the next parish in succession eastward of Barking, extends from the banks of the Thames far northward, by Chadwell Heath, into what used to be Hainault Forest, a distance of some seven miles inland, the northern border being fully five miles off from the straggling village. The eastern boundary of the parish is the Beam rivulet, which unites with the Rom. The village lies away about a mile northward of the high road from Barking to Rainham, two miles north-west from Rainham Station, on the Tilbury and Southend line of the Great Eastern Railway, and twelve miles from Whitechapel Church. The area of the parish is 6,600 acres, and the population in 1881 was 3,400, being an increase of about 600 during the preceding decade. This number is inclusive of the inhabitants of Becontree Heath, which gives its name to the Hundred, and lies away towards the north, in the vicinity of Chadwell Heath. Dagenham is not mentioned in "Domesday Book," being included under the general heading of Barking, it having originally formed part of the abbey demesnes. In Hodelerd's grant to the convent it is called Dechenham. There are four manors, or reputed manors, in this parish, namely, the manor of Dagenham proper, and also those of Cockermouth, Parslowes (or Parsloes), and Valence. In 1878 a stained glass window was inserted in the chancel in memory of Mr. T. L. Fanshawe, of Parslowes, in this parish. Among the memorials in the church is a tomb, with brasses, to Sir Thomas Urswyk, a former Recorder of London, dated 1470: it bears the effigies of himself, his wife, four sons, and nine daughters. A monument of white and grey marble, comprising the effigy of a judge in his robes, and also one of his lady in a mourning attitude, bears the following inscription :"Here lyes interr'd the body of Sir Richard Alibon, Knt., a person of extraordinary, both natural and acquired, parts, eminent in ye knowledge and practice of the law, of the honourable Society of Gray's Inn, recommended by his merits to the favour of The village is surrounded on all sides by corn- King James the Second, to whom he was a council learned in ye laws, and advanced to be one of the Justices of the Court of King's Bench, being the first of ye Roman faith these 150 years who had bin called to a place of so high a rank." He died August 22nd, 1688, aged fifty-three. This monument was erected by his widow, "Dame Barbara Alibon, who was daughter to John Blakestone, Esq., and granddaughter to Sir Wm. Blakestone, Knt., of Gibside, in the county of Durham." Two helmets and some fragments of gauntlets of ancient date, belonging to the knightly under the Abbess of Barking. The house is a good old modernised mansion, surrounded by a moat. The lawn and pleasure-grounds slope down to the edge of the moat, and contain some fine cedars. A turning out of the main road, by the side of the "Chequers" Inn, leads to the river-side at Dagenham Reach, about a mile distant. To the left of the road thither is a large sheet of water, an inlet from the Thames, nearly two miles in length, and covering an area of upwards of forty acres. Langhorne, the poet, was for some time curate dation known as Dagenham Breach, which early of Dagenham. in the last century laid desolate this part of the parish. Parslowes, the seat of the Fanshawes for the last two centuries, stands on the west side of the parish, a little to the north of the Rainham Road. It is a spacious brick building, with an embattled pediment and turrets, but dating, however, only from the beginning of the present century, when the house was new fronted. The gardens and pleasure-grounds alone surrounding the mansion are about seven acres in extent; the estate altogether, however, extends to about 600 acres. The estate of Valence, which lies a short distance further to the north, is so named from having been held by the Valences, Earls of Pembroke, Morant, in his "History of Essex," gives the following detailed account of the breach :-" It happened 17th of December, 1707, at an extraordinary high tide, accompanied with a violent wind, and was occasioned by the blowing up of a sluice, or trunk, made for the drain of the land-waters in the wall and banks of the Thames. If proper and immediate help had been applied, it could have been easily stopped, with a small charge, the ditch, or drain, of the marsh grounds, which led to such sluice, being, at the first blowing up of the sluice, not above fourteen or sixteen feet broad, and might in a day or two have been easily stopped by the bringing on a small dam, in form ofericircle, to the Thames wall, if many hands h.. been emoyed; but, through the neglect thereof, the constant force of the water setting in and out of the I vels soon made the gap wider, that a large channel was torn up, and a passage made for the water, of one hundred yards wide, and twenty feet deep in some places. By which unhappy accident, about 1,000 acres of rich land in the levels of Dagenham and Havering, worth about 529 of Havering and Dagenham. By which Act, for ten years, from 10th of July, 1714, the master of every ship or vessel coming into the port of London was obliged to pay threepence per ton, coasters three shillings each voyage, and colliers one penny per chalder, except fishing-vessels, ships in ballast only, and coasters, particularly Harwich boats. Colchester packet-boats to be charged with the duty of three shillings a voyage only four times in the year." The work of repairing the breach was then undertaken by one William Boswell, who, for the sum of £16,500, agreed to stop up the gap in the river-wall, and remove the shelf that had been thrown out into the Thames, but after the trial of various schemes he found himself unable complete the undertaking, and the work was abandoned. In 1715 an engagement was entered into with Captain John Perry, who had been employed £3 an acre, were overflowed, and a sand-bank by the Czar Peter in building the city of Veronitz, was raised in the Thames, at the mouth of the upon the River Don. Captain Perry undertook breach, which reached half across the river, and the work for £25,000, and a promise that if that near a mile in length, likely to prove great sum was not sufficient he should be recommended obstruction to, and even utterly to destroy, the to Parliament for a further grant. By the time he navigation. The expense of repairing this breach commenced his work the breach had been worn was, at first, laid upon the proprietors of the lands, into several large branches, like the natural arms but after many wearied and unsuccessful attempts of a river, by the force of the reflux water from of theirs for about seven years, until they had the marshes on every turn of the tide. The longest expended more than the value of the land, it was of these branches extended upwards of a mile and given wholly over as impracticable. However, a half, and was in some places between 400 and being deemed a public corn, upon application 500 feet broad, and from twenty to forty feet deep. to Parliament an Act was cern, upon application and effectual preserving btained for the speedy By extraordinary exertions, by driving dove-tail the navigation of the pieces in a peculiar manner, and by various other the breach in the levels expedients, Captain Perry at length, after about River Thames by stoppi five years' labour, succeeded in stopping the breach, but not before the works had been three times nearly destroyed and washed away by the strength and rapidity of the tides. The expense of this important undertaking amounted to £40,472, only £25,000 of which was allowed by the original contract; but £15 000 was afterwards voted by Parliament to Captain Perry, who was, nevertheless, after all, a loser of several thousands of pounds by his successful work. kept protected from overflow at every tide, at full and new moon, or during particularly wet seasons, are questions of no common interest, and on which a very general ignorance prevails. The average rise of the tide in the Thames is, at London Bridge, eighteen feet, at Deptford, twenty, at Purfleet, seventeen, at Holy Haven, fifteen, and at the Nore, fourteen. "From Fulham to the Nore," observes a writer in Once a Week,* “every high tide would lay a very large proportion of the neighbouring country under But this is not the only occasion on which the river has proved wantonly destructive to the low-water, and at spring tides would restore the appearlying districts on its north side. In 1376, we are ance of the basin of the Thames to what it must told, the tide made a breach at Dagenham, which have presented to Cæsar's eyes if he chanced to drowned so many acres of land belonging to the sight it first at flood tide, were it not for the system abbey at Barking as seriously to affect the wealth of embankments which line both sides of the river, and prosperity of that institution, and to drive as well as of its tributaries. some of the "religieuses" to take refuge on the high ground at Billericay. We do not learn how the misfortune was repaired. During the progress of the work carried out by Captain Perry, the workmen cut into a "moorlog," or vein of buried wood, which appears to run for miles along the side of the river, and they thought that a buried "forest primeval" lay revealed beneath their feet. It was discovered three or four feet under the surface of the marsh, and was found to be about ten feet in depth. It contained yewtrees from fourteen to sixteen inches in diameter, and perfectly sound; willows more than two feet in girth, but like touchwood; and mingled with it was small brushwood, and even hazel-nuts, which appeared sound to the eye, but crumbled to the touch. Several stags' horns were also met with lying about the moorlog. Coller, in his "History of Essex," says:-"Some have indulged learned surmises that these are the remains of the devastation of the Deluge; others that they are the remnants of the old forest beaten down and buried by storms and inundations at a later age; but the most practical conclusion is that they were purposely laid there by some of the rude engineers of olden times, as foundations for works to shut out the troublesome flow of the Thames on to the neighbouring lands." Mr. Smiles, in his work on "Engineers," informs us that the Thames is kept in its bed by 300 miles of embankment between London Bridge and the Nore. How the River Thames came to be reduced to reasonable dimensions and confined to its present channel, how it is kept within it, and how the thousands of acres of low land lying between both banks and the higher grounds are * See ante, p. 506. "Conjecture has ever been busy among local and general historians as to the origin of these embankments, and the credit of their construction has been very generally given to the Romans. Indeed, this mighty nation of fighting and paving men share the honour of many of the most stupendous works which are scattered over the face of Europe pretty equally with a certain personage, who, if he have rightly earned the titles of the 'first Whig' and the 'first gentleman,' might seem equally deserving-to judge from the works ascribed to him-of that of the 'first engineer' as well. . . . What public works, however, of enormous dimensions and immense difficulty cannot be clearly traced to the Great Enemy and his gang are generally fathered next upon the Romans-and with far more solid grounds for the conjecture. Old Rome's public works stand to this day the noblest memorial of her greatness, and are still food for wonder to an engineering and scientific age. A very curt enumeration of the baths, sewers, aqueducts, amphitheatres, temples, and other public buildings, which are due to Roman enterprise, would fill a volume; whilst the long lines of hard, durable road which to this day intersect the countries they conquered are solid and striking memorials of their large perception of what are the tangible appliances of a centralised government, as well as of their skill as paviors. Roman soldiers, we know, were 'navvies' as well as fighting-men, and could handle the spade and basket as well as 'the sword and the buckler.' "No wonder that in the days of our youth, when we were of that inquiring turn of mind which prompts children to ask disagreeable questions of their elders and betters, the sight of Romney * See Vol. V., p. 665. |