HAINAULT FOREST, WOOLWICH, AND OTHER
EASTERN SUBURBS OF LONDON
[Sidenote: Hainault Forest]
The once beautiful district known as Hainault Forest, said to have been
named after the wife of Edward III., extending on the north to Theydon
Bois, on the west to Leytonstone, on the east to Havering-atte-Bower,
and on the south to Aldborough Hatch, belonged in early Norman times to
Barking Abbey, and passed, at the dissolution of the monasteries, to
the Crown. It was almost as favourite a resort of the Tudors and
Stuarts as Epping Forest itself, and is nearly as full of interesting
historic associations, but for all that it was condemned in the middle
of the nineteenth century as unprofitable waste ground, and in 1851 an
Act of Parliament was passed empowering the Government to destroy or
remove the deer that had for so many centuries haunted its recesses, to
cut down the trees, and to sell the land for farming or building. All
too rapidly the work of destruction proceeded, but fortunately, before
it was completed, it was finally arrested on the initiative of Mr.
North Buxton, whose efforts to save the little remnant left were {73}
seconded by the London County Council and various local corporations,
with the result that, in 1906, eight hundred acres were bought and
secured to the public as a recreation ground. It was of course too
late to restore to the forest anything of its ancient charm, for its
dense groves of oak and beech were gone for ever, but some few
delightful woodlands still remained. Many trees have been planted, and
even now certain outlying villages retain something of their original
rural character, especially Aldborough Hatch, the name of which
signifies an ancient mansion near a hatch or gate of the forest--that
has now, however, receded far from it--and Barking Side. The latter,
once a secluded spot in a densely wooded neighbourhood, is celebrated
as having been near the scene of the famous Fairlop Fair, that was
founded in the eighteenth century by Daniel Day, a wealthy blockmaker
of Wapping, and for more than two centuries was frequented every year
by thousands of pleasure-seekers from the east end of London. The fair
took its name from a wide-spreading oak about a mile from the still
standing Maypole Inn, beneath which Daniel Day used to entertain his
tenants at midsummer; but it was celebrated long before his time. Many
allusions are made to it in the contemporary press, notably in the once
popular Fairlop Fair song, in which its nickname is explained in the
following quaint rhyme--
'To Hainault Forest Queen Anne she did ride,
And beheld the beautiful oak by her side;
And after viewing it from the bottom to the top,
She said to her court: "It is a Fair lop."'
{74}
Long after the death of Daniel Day, which took place in 1769, the
blockmakers of London used to hold an annual beanfeast beneath the
Fairlop oak, going to it, it is said, in a vehicle shaped like a boat,
drawn by six horses; and although the tree was blown down in 1820, and
its site is now enclosed in a private garden, many merrymakers still
resort to Barking Side to be present at a kind of parody of the ancient
fair. The trunk of the oak was used to make the pulpit of Wanstead
Church and that of St. Pancras in Euston Road, and the fact that its
memory was still held dear long after its fall is proved by its name
having been given to the boat presented by the London Foresters to the
Lifeboat Society in 1865.
[Sidenote: Havering-atte-Bower]
Although, as from Hainault Forest itself, much of the glamour and
romance of the past has for ever departed from the once beautiful
country, between it and the Thames, that is now a mere suburb, and not
a very interesting suburb of London, some few of its hamlets and
villages still bear the impress of the long ago, and are intimately
associated with important episodes of English history. Near to the
still independent market town of Romford, for instance, is the village
of Havering-atte-Bower, that gives its name to the ancient Liberty,
including the extensive parishes of Romford, Havering, and Hornchurch,
and is built on the site of a royal palace, once the favourite resort
of Edward the Confessor, and of many of his successors. The name of
Havering has been very variously explained, the most poetic and also
the most probable interpretation {75} being that it commemorates a
beautiful legend relating to the saintly founder of Westminster Abbey
to the effect that he gave to St. John the Evangelist, who had appeared
to him in the guise of a pilgrim, a ring from his own finger. Many
years afterwards, when King Edward was at the consecration of a church
in Essex, two pilgrims from the Holy Land came to him to tell him that
the beloved disciple had met them in Jerusalem, and charged them with a
message for him. The king at once inquired 'Have ye the ring?'--a
sentence that was later converted into Havering--to which the pilgrims
replied by producing it. The message was to the effect that St. John
would meet the original owner of the ring in Paradise a fortnight
later, a prophecy that was fulfilled, for King Edward passed away at
that time. Some say the church in which the singular meeting took
place was at Waltham, others that it was a chapel on the site of the
present church of Romford, dedicated to St. Edward the Confessor and
St. Mary the Virgin, whilst yet others think it was that which stood
where now rises the modern church of St. John the Evangelist at
Havering, which contains a font used in the Saxon building that
preceded it.
The manor of Havering has remained Crown property to the present day,
though the park in which the Confessor's house stood has been cut up
and let on leases. The so-called royal palace, that was probably
merely a hunting lodge, was replaced after the Conquest by a more
convenient residence, called the Bower, to which the English kings were
{76} fond of resorting. There Edward III., a disappointed and
disillusioned man, spent several months of the last year of his life,
after he had named the unworthy son of the beloved Black Prince his
successor, and there Edward IV., a year before his death, won great
popularity with the citizens of London by the hospitality he showed to
the 'maire and aldermen,' as related in Hall's _Chronicle_, who
observes, 'No one thyng in many daies gatte him either more hartes or
more hertie favour amongst the comon people.' Edward VI. was often at
the Bower before he came to the throne; Queen Elizabeth, to whom the
people of Havering were devoted, for she secured to them many of their
ancient privileges, was as fond of it as of any of her palaces at
Enfield, and her successor James I., never failed to visit it once a
year. After his time, however, it, for some unexplained reason fell
into disrepute, and was allowed to become a complete ruin. By the
middle of the nineteenth century not a trace of it remained, and it is
now represented by a new Bower House, a short distance from its site,
built in 1729 for a private lease-holder.
Not far from the old hunting lodge there was another royal residence,
known as Prygo, which was for a long time reserved for the use of
widowed queens, but was given by Elizabeth to Sir John Grey, a relation
of the ill-fated nine days' queen. After changing hands again and
again, the historic relic, which might well have been bought for the
nation, was sold for building material and pulled down, with the
exception of one wing, which was {77} later incorporated in a house
built in 1852, that retains the quaint old name.
[Sidenote: Leyton]
The twin towns of Leyton and Leytonstone, the latter not long ago a
mere hamlet of the former, are both named after the Lea, and were, half
a century ago, charming villages, near to which were many fine old
mansions, the homes of wealthy City merchants, who have since deserted
them for the more fashionable western suburbs. Some few of these
houses, notably those known as Etloe and Rockholt, though turned to
other uses, still remain, and near to the latter have been found traces
of ancient entrenchments, that have led some authorities to identify
the site of Leyton with that of the Roman Durolitum. The churches of
both towns are modern, but that of St. Mary at Leyton, in which is
buried the celebrated antiquarian John Strype, who was vicar of the
parish for sixty-eight years, retains the tower of an earlier building,
and contains some interesting seventeenth and eighteenth century
monuments, including two to members of the Hickes family, which were
recently removed from the chancel and set up at the west end. There
are also several noteworthy brasses on the walls with quaint
inscriptions, such as that relating to Lady Mary Kingstone, who died in
1577, and a tablet to the memory of the famous printer William Bowyer,
who passed away in 1777; and in the churchyard rest many celebrities,
of whom the best known outside Leyton are the dramatist David Lewis,
and the Master of the Rolls, Sir John Strange, who died, the former in
1700, the latter in 1754.
{78}
Stratford on the Lea, named after the ancient ford that was in use
between it and Bow, the Stratford-atte-Bow of Chaucer, till the river
was spanned by the bridge built by Matilda, wife of Henry I., that was
taken down as recently as 1839, was originally only an outlying hamlet
of West Ham, but it has of late years grown into a densely populated
manufacturing centre, well provided with modern places of worship, but
retaining, alas, not a trace of the beautiful Cistercian abbey, founded
in the twelfth century, that was once the pride of the whole
neighbourhood. It is very much the same with Great Ilford, named after
a ford over the Roding, which, though not yet so large as Stratford, is
already a thriving town, almost its only relic of the past being the
hospital, that now belongs, with the estate on which it is built, to
the Marquis of Salisbury, originally founded for the use of thirteen
lepers who had been in the service of King Stephen, by Adliza, Abbess
of Barking, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St. Thomas of
Canterbury. Little Ilford, on the other hand, on the south-west side
of its greater namesake, is still not much more than a village, though
from it, too, nearly everything of antiquarian interest has been
improved away. The beautiful old church was pulled down some fifty
years ago, but, fortunately, in its modern successor are preserved a
few of the ancient monuments, amongst which is especially noteworthy
that to William Waldegrave and his wife, who died, the latter in 1595,
the former in 1616.
A century ago West Ham was one of the most {79} picturesque villages of
Essex, with many charming old mansions belonging to the wealthy City
merchants in its immediate vicinity, but it is now a densely populated
town, with scarcely anything about it to recall the olden times. The
much modernised church of All Saints, however, retains its original
foundations, a Norman clerestory and an early English nave, with which,
unfortunately, the modern brick chancel and aisles are quite out of
character. Some of the ancient monuments have also been preserved,
notably the fifteenth-century tomb of a certain Robert Rook, that of
Sir Thomas Foot, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1650, and that of
William Fawcett, who died in 1631.
[Sidenote: Upton]
Not far from West Ham is the village of Upton, and near to it are some
fine old houses, including that known as The Cedars, once the home of
the famous Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, the enthusiastic advocate of prison
reform, who was the sister of Mr. Samuel Gurney, a true, kindred
spirit, almost as well known for his disinterested work for the poor
and oppressed. The latter lived in what was known as Ham House, which
was pulled down soon after his death in 1856, and eighteen years later
the park in which it used to stand was bought for the people, partly by
the Gurney family and partly by the corporation of London.
East Ham is another town of rapid growth, the nucleus of which was not
long ago a charming village, still in close touch with the long ago.
In early Norman times it was a dependency of Westminster {80} Abbey,
and the much modernised parish church, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene,
retains portions of the ancient building that dated from about the
eleventh century, whilst the old manor-house, now a farm, is still
standing. There remains, however, a certain rural charm about the
dependent hamlets of Flasket and Green Street, the former retaining an
ancient mansion, in which Elizabeth Fry lived for many years before her
removal to The Cedars, and the latter still priding itself on its
ancient manor-house, now an agricultural training home for boys, that
was once the seat of the noble Nevill family, to whom there is a good
monument in the church. The home bears the inappropriate name of Anne
Boleyn's Castle, because of a tradition, for which there is no
historical information, that the ill-fated second wife of Henry VIII.
was wooed in it, and, by a strange irony of fate, shut up in it later,
to await the day of her execution, after her condemnation to death.
[Sidenote: Barking Abbey]
Greater even than the transformation which has taken place in Stratford
and the Hams is that which has converted Barking from a straggling
fishing village, dependent on the famous Benedictine abbey, after which
it is named, that was founded in the ninth century by St. Erkenwald,
into a thriving market town, that is still rapidly widening its
boundaries. The abbey itself, that was burnt by the Danes in 870, and
rebuilt a century later by King Edgar, is gone, but for all that
something of the old romance and sanctity still seems to cling to the
district it dominated, that was for centuries looked upon by the
faithful as one of the most sacred in {81} England. The first abbess
was the saintly St. Ethelburga, sister of the founder, and she and St.
Erkenwald were both buried in the abbey church. After the rebuilding
of the abbey under Edgar, until the dissolution of the monasteries, its
history was intimately bound up with that of the whole country, the
holy women who successively held the office of abbess, many of them of
royal birth, taking a very active share in politics, and unlike their
successors in modern nunneries, exercising jurisdiction over men as
well as women. Barking Abbey became celebrated throughout the length
and breadth of the land for the miracles wrought in it, and also as a
place of education for the daughters of aristocratic parents. The
Abbess of Barking was one of the four ladies of England who were
baronesses in their own right, a privilege that included, strange to
say, the right to a seat in the Witenagemot, or Great Council, the
predecessor of the Parliament the doors of which have ever been so
jealously closed against women. The prosperity of the great abbey of
Barking seems to have begun to decline about the middle of the
fourteenth century through the flooding of some lands belonging to it,
but it was still a very valuable property when it was confiscated by
Henry VIII., who, with unusual generosity, gave to the then abbess an
annuity of two hundred marks for the rest of her life.
The only remaining relics of the once beautiful and extensive abbey
buildings are a few bits of the old walls and a massive gateway--that
from which, according to local tradition, William the Conqueror {82}
set forth on his first royal progress through his newly acquired
kingdom--which is known as 'The Five-bell Gate,' the curfew bell having
been rung from the campanile above it, which used to bear the beautiful
name of the Chapel of the Holy Rood, there having been a bas-relief of
the Crucifixion on its walls.
The parish church of Barking, dedicated to St. Margaret--the churchyard
of which is entered from the Five-bell Gate--retains parts of the
original Norman building and of the early English additions to it, and
contains several interesting old brasses; but, unfortunately, what was
some years ago a very characteristic example of the transition between
the two styles has been almost completely spoiled by so-called
restoration, the massive piers having been whitewashed and the
beautiful timber roof covered in with an over-ornamented plaster
ceiling.
The town of Barking is rather picturesquely situated on the left bank
of the Roding, about a mile above the creek named after it. It
contains, however, very little of interest except the ancient
market-hall, said to have been built by Elizabeth, and is practically
an integral part of London over the Border, with long monotonous
streets of small houses. Of the many mansions once occupied by wealthy
merchants, the sixteenth-century Eastbury House, recently restored by
its owner, is an isolated example, and is locally known as the
'Gunpowder House,' because of an unfounded tradition that the
conspirators in the Guy Fawkes plot watched from it for the blowing-up
of the Houses of Parliament, {83} or, according to another version of
the same legend, Lord Mounteagle there received the letter which
enabled him to frustrate the iniquitous scheme.
[Sidenote: Dagenham]
The rapidly growing village of Dagenham, that will doubtless soon
become a town, set in the midst of market-gardens in the low-lying
districts east of Barking, retains far more than the latter the rural
appearance it presented when it was part of the extensive abbey
demesne. The ancient church, in spite of much necessary rebuilding,
retains a fine piscina that was long bricked up, and other ancient
relics, including an altar-slab bearing the marks symbolical of the
Redeemer's wounds, and the tomb of Sir Thomas Ursuyk, who died in 1470,
on which are effigies of himself, his wife, and their thirteen children.
Subject as it has been from the earliest historic times to inundation
from the Thames, Dagenham has been from the first intimately associated
with engineering enterprise. Discoveries were made in the early
eighteenth century of what was at first taken for a submerged forest,
but on examination proved to be relics of wooden embankments that were
probably existing in pre-Roman times. In 1376 the breaking down of the
banks of the Thames at Dagenham flooded the village and the whole
neighbourhood, involving so heavy a loss to the Abbey of Barking that
the then abbess had to appeal to King Edward I. for exemption from a
payment due to him. How the mischief then done was repaired there is
no evidence to show, but there are many allusions in contemporary
records to later {84} occurrences of a similar kind, all of which,
however, sink into insignificance before the great calamity of December
17, 1707, when in a violent storm a breach four hundred feet wide was
made in the Thames embankment, and one thousand acres were submerged.
Many attempts were made to stop the gap, but it was not until 1715 that
anything like success was achieved. At that date Captain Perry
undertook the arduous task, and five years later he had reclaimed all
but a comparatively small portion of the lost lands, the so-called
Dagenham Breach or Dagenham Lake, a picturesque sheet of water much
resorted to by anglers, being all that is now left to keep alive the
memory of the famous disaster. About 1884 a company was formed to
transform this lake into a dock, but fortunately, perhaps, for those
who prefer beauty to utility, the enterprise failed for want of funds.
Meanwhile Dagenham Breach had become associated with an institution
still dear to the hearts of politicians--the annual ministerial
whitebait dinner--for it was in a cottage on its banks belonging to Sir
John Preston, M.P. for Dover, and president of the committee for
inspecting the embankment at Dagenham, that that dinner was first
eaten. In its inception a mere gathering of friends who met to enjoy
the country air and to eat freshly caught whitebait in each other's
company, the meeting gradually grew in importance as time went on,
William Pitt having been often one of the guests. Later, the distance
from town was found too great for ministers and city magnates, so it
was transferred to Greenwich, where, since the death {85} of Sir John
Preston, the old Dagenham traditions have been religiously maintained.
[Sidenote: Barking Creek]
The low-lying, marshy districts near Barking Creek, where the Roding
flows into the Thames, and those between Dagenham and Woolwich, have
unfortunately lost nearly all the country charm which distinguished
them at the time of Sir John Preston, but the beautiful water highway
intersecting them, that is associated with so many thrilling memories,
and has been the scene of so many notable historic pageants, will ever
lend to them a strong element of the picturesque. Constant changes in
the tides, with never-ending variations in the traffic, dainty
pleasure-craft, heavily laden barges, crowded steamers, and busy tugs
succeeding each other in an unbroken procession, or momentarily forming
picturesque groups to which the rarely absent mist and fog give an
effective touch of mystery, render every reach of the Lower Thames full
of inspiration to the artist. Even at Woolwich itself, one half of
which is on the north and the other on the south of the river, there is
still much that is attractive, in spite of the fact that the town is
nearly everywhere divided from the water by the long lines of the
dockyard and arsenal, and that strength and utility rather than beauty
of structure are the distinguishing characteristics of those two
centres of activity.
[Sidenote: Woolwich]
Originally a small fishing-village, the site of which is supposed to
have been once occupied by a Roman camp, Woolwich, now one of the most
important eastern suburbs of London, owes its prosperity {86} chiefly
to its having been chosen by Henry VIII. as his chief naval station.
In its dockyard was built the famous ship called the _Henrye Grace à
Dieu_, as proved by entries in an account-book, now in the Record
Office, of the payments made to 'shippe-wrights and other officers
working upon the Kinges great shippe at Wolwiche' from 1512 to 1515,
when it was launched in the presence of Henry and Katharine of Aragon,
who with their court and many invited guests dined on board at the
royal expense. The career of the great _Henrye Grace à Dieu_ was
short, for it was destroyed by fire at Woolwich in 1553; but many other
famous ships were built in the same dockyard, including some of those
that went forth to meet the Spanish Armada, others that took part in
the voyages of exploration of Hawkins and Frobisher, and the _Royal
Sovereign_, nicknamed the 'Golden Devil' by the Dutch on account of its
terrible powers, that was built in the reign of Charles I. In his
famous _Diary_ the gossipy Secretary of the Admiralty, Mr. Pepys, often
alludes to Woolwich, which he constantly visited to inspect the
dockyard, the ships, and the stores, making the journey from Greenwich
sometimes by boat, sometimes on foot. He describes how he looked into
the details of every department, examining the charges made for work
done, and he strikes a melancholy and prophetic note when he says: 'I
see it is impossible for the King to have things done so cheap as other
men.' A somewhat later entry in the same journal calls up a picture of
a very different kind of place to the crowded, busy, and somewhat
squalid {87} town of to-day, for on May 28, 1669, the writer says: 'My
wife away down with Jane ... to Woolwich in order to [get] a little
ayre, and to lie there to-night and so to gather May dew in the morning
... to wash her face with.' To quote Pepys again, he laments at the
time of the scare about the Dutch, the sinking of so many good ships in
the Thames off Woolwich, shrewdly remarking that these ships 'would
have been good works to command the river below' had the enemy
attempted to pass them, and adding, 'it is a sad sight while we would
be thought masters of the sea.'
[Illustration: THE THAMES AT WOOLWICH]
The gallant Prince Rupert was for some time in command at Woolwich, and
greatly strengthened its defences, adding to them a battery of sixty
guns. According to tradition, he lived in the house near the arsenal,
now converted into a museum close to which was a lofty observatory
named after him, comanding a fine view, which was unfortunately taken
down in 1786. Throughout the whole of the eighteenth and part of the
nineteenth century, when wars and rumours of wars kept up a constant
demand for new battleships, additions continued to be made to the great
dockyard of Woolwich, which reached the zenith of its prosperity under
the gifted engineers, Sir John Rennie and his son, who created a large
reservoir, built a strong river wall, and proved themselves equal to
meeting every emergency that arose. The dockyard soon became as
celebrated for the iron vessels launched from it as for their wooden
predecessors, but ere long even it failed to be able to produce the
huge iron-clad {88} men-of-war required for modern scientific warfare.
On September 17, 1869, the fiat went forth that Woolwich dockyard
should be closed, and soon after part of it was sold, whilst the
remainder was converted into a Government storehouse for munitions of
war.
The fame of the ancient dockyard was soon to be equalled, if not
surpassed, by that of the Royal Arsenal that occupies the site of what
was long known as the Warren, which was closely associated with the
memory of the convicts who used to work in it and in the dockyard,
living in the ancient vessels called the hulks that were moored in the
river. The present arsenal is the successor of a very much more
ancient military depot, for even if there be no real foundation for the
popular tradition that Queen Elizabeth founded the latter, there are
many references to it in early ordnance accounts, notably in one
bearing date July 9, 1664, in which, in an estimate for repairs, occurs
the item: 'for floaring a storehouse att Woolwich to keepe shipp
carriages dry.' Sixteen years later an order was issued from the
Admiralty that 'all ye sheds at Woolwich along ye proofe house, and ye
shedds for carriages there, be forthwith repaired,' supplemented in
1682 by directions for building 'a new shedd at Woolwich, with all
convenient speed, with artificers at ye reasonablest rates,' and in
1688 by instructions for the removal of all guns, carriages, and
stores, then at Deptford, to Woolwich.
Founded in the closing years of the eighteenth century, the modern
Arsenal of Woolwich is one of the most extensive and interesting
institutions of the {89} kind in the world. Exclusive of the outlying
powder magazines in the marshes, the present buildings cover
considerably more than three hundred acres, the ordinary staff of
workpeople numbers some ten thousand, that is increased to forty
thousand or fifty thousand in time of war. In the various departments
the whole science of modern war material may be studied, whilst in the
Royal Artillery Museum the history of the past is illustrated by a
remarkably complete collection of weapons and models. On the wharf and
pier in connection with the Arsenal the landing and embarkation of
troops and the shipping of stores are constantly going on, troops are
daily exercised and reviews are often held on the common outside the
town, so that there is always something interesting to be seen at
Woolwich, which in addition to its fine Dockyard and Arsenal, owns the
Royal Military Academy that was founded by George II. in 1741, and is
associated with the memory of many great soldiers.
Outside Woolwich is the lofty Shooters Hill, commanding a fine view of
the Thames valley and London, that was in olden times a noted haunt of
highwaymen, a fact to which it is supposed to owe its name. It is
often alluded to by old chroniclers, notably by Phillpott, who declares
that it was so called for the 'thievery there practised where
travellers in elder times were so much infested with depredations and
bloody mischief, that order was taken in the 6th year of Richard II.
for the enlarging the highway'; but the evil was not remedied, for as
late as 1682 Oldham wrote that 'Padders came {90} from Shooters Hill in
flocks.' In Hall's _Chronicle_ there is a noteworthy description of a
meeting on Shooters Hill between Henry VIII. and his queen and Robin
Hood, which deserves quotation at length: 'And as they passed by the
way,' he says, 'they espied a company of tall yeomen, clothed all in
grene with grene whodes and bowes and arrowes to the number of ii C.
Then one of them, which called himselfe Robyn Hood, came to the kyng
desyring him to se his men shoote, and the kyng was content. Then he
whistled, and al the ii C archers shot and losed at once, and then he
whisteled agayne and they likewise shot agayne, their arrows whisteled
by crafte of the head so that the noyes was strange and great and much
pleased the kynge and quene and all the company.' So delighted,
indeed, was Henry with the prowess displayed, that when the bold Robin
'desyred them to come into the grene wood and see how the outlaws
lyve,' they readily consented. 'Then,' adds the chronicler, 'the
hornes blew till they came to the wood under Shoters Hil, and there was
an arbor made of boughs, with a hal and a great chamber very well made
and covered with floures and swete herbes, which the kyng much
praysed.' Encouraged by this success, the outlaw chief made a yet
bolder venture, for though he must have known that he was risking the
lives of all his merry men as well as his own, he said to the king,
'Outlawes brekefastes is venyson, and therefore you must be content
with such fare as we use.' Even this bold confession of guilt,
however, did not rouse the ire of the usually hasty monarch; he and his
queen, says Hall, 'sate {91} doune and were served with venyson and
wyne by Robin Hood and his men to their contentacion.'
Writing more than a century after this notable meeting so typical of
the time at which it occurred, the ubiquitous Pepys, who seems to have
been here, there, and everywhere, tells how in a journey from Stratford
to London he and his wife's maid rode under a dead body hanging on
Shooters Hill, and that the reputation of the famous height was not
much improved in Byron's time is proved by the fact that the poet makes
his Don Juan shoot a man on it who had accosted him with the trite
demand, 'your money or your life.' Now, however, all is changed: no
longer is the Bull Inn--where, according to local tradition, Dick
Turpin nearly roasted the landlady on her own kitchen fire, to make her
confess where she kept her savings--the stopping-place of coaches; the
ancient woods are replaced by the Military Hospital, the largest in
Great Britain, named after Lord Herbert of Lea, who was Secretary of
State for War when it was erected; trim villas and a modern church,
that is already too small for its congregation. The one remaining
relic of days gone by is the ugly Severndoorg Castle, a massive
three-storied tower on the top of the hill, built by the wife of Sir
William Jones, to commemorate his taking of the stronghold, after which
it is named, on the coast of Malabar.
[Sidenote: Plumstead]
Less than a century ago, Plumstead, which with Burrage Town now forms
the eastern suburb of Woolwich, was a mere isolated hamlet of the
marshes, a dependency of the manor given in 960 {92} by King Edgar to
the abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, which after changing hands
many times became the property of Queen's College, Oxford. The ancient
manor-house, now a farm, still stands near the parish church--which is
dedicated to St. Nicolas, the patron saint of fishermen--that, though
greatly modernised, retains some few traces of the original building.
Of the seat of the noble De Burghesh family, who once owned the site of
Burrage Town, nothing now remains, though its memory is preserved in
the name of Burrage Place, a row of uninteresting modern houses.
Between Plumstead and Erith is a low-lying district, now being rapidly
built over, that is still known by the poetic name of Abbey Wood, in
memory of the beautiful Lesnes Abbey to which it once belonged, of
which a few traces are still preserved, including a doorway and some
portions of the garden walls. Founded in 1178 by Richard de Lacy for a
branch of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, the abbey remained in
their possession till it was confiscated by Henry VIII., and its site
is now the property of Christ's Hospital. Where the fine old Abbey
Grange once stood, is the so-called Abbey Farm that was built on the
old foundations, and not very long ago was surrounded by beautiful
woods. It was due to the untiring energy of the monks of Lesnes Abbey,
aided by their neighbours, the owners of Plumstead manor, that the
marshes which are now such a valuable property were first drained, but
their work was again and again undone by the breaking down of their
embankments {93} and the rushing in of the river. In 1527 two such
breaches were made at Plumstead and Erith, and for more than thirty
years the abbey lands near the Thames were one unbroken lake, all
efforts to draw off the floods having been unavailing. In 1563,
however, an Italian named Giacomo Aconzio, a refugee from religious
persecution under the protection of Queen Elizabeth, offered to reclaim
the submerged district, and an Act of Parliament was passed empowering
him 'at his own cost and charges, during the term of four years, to
inne, fence and win the said grounds or any parcel of them,' as a
reward for which service he was to receive a moiety of the ground thus
secured. Six hundred acres only were drained before the death of
Aconzio, but the work begun by him was vigorously carried on after he
had passed away, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century not
more than five hundred acres remained under water. These, too, were
eventually restored to cultivation, and since then no serious flood has
occurred, though but for the prompt action of the engineers of the
Woolwich Arsenal, when through an explosion of gunpowder at Crossness a
breach one hundred yards wide was made in the river wall at Erith, the
whole of the reclaimed lands would have been once more submerged.
[Sidenote: Crossness Point]
Though all that are now left of the beautiful Abbey Woods are enclosed,
glimpses of them can still be obtained here and there, and there are
many beautiful walks in the neighbourhood, notably one to Lesnes and
Burstall Heaths, the latter of which has recently been secured for the
people, and one to the {94} village of West Wickham, that owns a
thirteenth-century church containing the remains of mural frescoes of
scenes from the life of Christ. Crossness Point too, where is situated
one of the outfalls of the metropolitan drainage works, is within easy
reach of Woolwich and Erith, and is really quite a picturesque
settlement, the engine-houses, master's villa, workmen's cottages and
school, being grouped about a well-proportioned central chimney.
[Sidenote: Erith]
Finely situated on rising ground a little further down the river than
Woolwich, and commanding a fine view up and down stream, the densely
populated town of Erith, the name of which is supposed to mean the
ancient haven, was long an important naval and commercial port, and is
still a much frequented yachting station. Considerable doubt exists as
to the identity of the first lord of the manor, but the estate was one
of those seized by William the Conqueror, who gave it to his
half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux. Several centuries later it was
granted by Henry VIII. to Elizabeth, Countess of Salisbury, and it now
belongs to the Wheatley family, one of whom replaced the old
manor-house by a modern mansion. The ancient parish church that rises
up from the borders of the marsh a little distance from the town,
though it has been a good deal spoiled by restoration, is probably in
its main structure much what it was when the famous meeting took place
in it between the discontented barons and the commissioners of King
John, at which, it is said, the terms of Magna Charta were first
discussed. Some portions of the original timber roof remain, above the
chancel arch there is a quaint {95} figure of Christ with arms
outstretched, and in the southern aisle is a hagioscope or squint, from
which the altar can be seen. Some of the monuments, too, are
interesting, notably that to the Countess of Salisbury, who was once
the lady of the manor, and there are several good brasses, including
two dating from the fifteenth century, one commemorating Roger
Sinclair, the other John Aylmer and his wife.
The older portions of the town of Erith, with the background of hills
stretching away to the Abbey Woods, retain a certain rural character,
and at the annual fair held on Whit-Monday it resumes for a time
something of its ancient appearance when it was the seat of a
corporation and had its own weekly market. Another strong element of
interest of a different kind is the fact that in its neighbourhood the
whole life-story of the valley of the Thames can be read backwards, the
excavations made for various purposes having laid bare the strata and
revealed the remains of many animals, such as the elephant and the
great cave tiger, that were extinct in Great Britain long before the
historic era. Moreover, the draining of the marshes has brought to
light the remains of what was at first supposed to be a submerged
forest, but is proved to be the relics of early historic or prehistoric
embankments, trunks and roots of a great variety of trees bearing
unmistakable traces of human manipulation having been found in a bed of
peat below the alluvial clay.
Within easy reach of Erith is the riverside village of Belvedere,
destined probably soon to become a town, that takes its name from a
mansion on high ground that was built in 1764 by Sir Samuel Gideon,
{96} later Lord Eardley, but was converted, in 1869, into a home for
aged seamen, and is now a noted school for boys.
[Sidenote: North Cray]
Further away from the Thames, though still to a certain extent in touch
with it, is the romantic district collectively known as the Crays,
watered by the river from which it takes its name, and in which are
situated the town of Crayford and the villages of North Cray, Foot's
Cray, Bexley, St. Paul's Cray, Mary Cray, and Orpington. The site of
the first, the Crecgenford of the Saxon chronicle, was the scene, in
457, of a battle in which Hengist and his son Æsc fought against the
Britons, slaying four thousand men, and here and there in the
neighbourhood are many artificial caves with vaulted roofs, locally
known as Dane holes, and popularly supposed to have been used as
hiding-places for treasure in times of war, but which are possibly
really parts of the great system of underground galleries and chambers
that was recently opened at Chislehurst.
At the time of the Doomsday Survey, Crayford manor was the property of
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the sub-manors of Newbury and Marshal
Court were bought, in 1694, by Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel, whose
descendants sold the mansion belonging to them to the owner of a linen
factory, who quickly converted it into a workshop, thus inaugurating
the transformation of a mere hamlet into a thriving manufacturing
centre, for it now owns many factories and mills employing a large
number of work-people.
The church of Crayford, dedicated to the Apostle {97} of the North, St.
Paulinus, who did much good work in the Thames valley before he became
Bishop of York, is a noteworthy structure, in the perpendicular style,
with a fine timber roof that probably belonged to an earlier building.
It is of somewhat unusual construction, having no nave but two very
broad aisles connected by the chancel arch, and it contains some
interesting monuments, including one to William Draper and his wife,
who died, the former in 1650, the latter in 1652, and one to Dame
Elizabeth Shovel, who passed away in 1752.
North Cray, about two miles from Crayford, is still a charming
scattered hamlet, and from it a pathway leads across fields to Foot's
Cray, the latter said to be named after Godwin Fot, who owned the manor
at the time of Edward the Confessor. It passed, after changing hands
several times, to the Walsingham family, and in its manor-house was
born Sir Francis Walsingham, the Puritan statesman who was so bitter an
enemy of the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots. Foot's Cray owns a very
interesting old church--unfortunately a good deal spoiled by unskilful
restoration--with traces of Saxon and Norman work, and a little to the
north of it is a fine eighteenth-century mansion belonging to the
Vansittart family. Still more noteworthy is the relic of the once
beautiful Ruxley church, now used as a barn, that is about
three-quarters of a mile from Foot's Cray and deserves careful
examination, the sedilia and piscina, with part of the original chalk
walls faced with flint, having been preserved when the rest of the
materials were sold for building.
{98}
Built on the river Cray, that is bridged over in its principal street,
Bexley has recently grown almost into a town, but it is still a pretty
place and owns an interesting old church--with a lofty tower surmounted
by an octagonal spire--that is supposed to occupy the site of a Saxon
chapel founded in the ninth century by Wilfrid, Archbishop of
Canterbury. A beautiful Norman arch above the Early English southern
doorway is probably a relic of a second building that preceded the
present one. The latter, that dates from the twelfth or thirteenth
century, was well restored some thirty years ago, when portions of a
fine old rood screen were skilfully dovetailed into a modern one, the
ancient oak stalls were replaced in the chancel, and several brasses
that had long been buried were set up in their former positions,
including one to the memory of the At Hall family--who owned the
eighteenth-century Hall Place on the road from Bexley to Crayford--that
bears the symbol of the horn, proving that they held their manor on
what was known as a hornage tenure, a horn having been the token of a
forester's office.
St. Paul's Cray, named after the much loved St. Paulinus, who was sent
to England by St. Gregory in response to an appeal from St. Augustine
for labourers to aid him in reaping the great harvest of souls in Kent,
is situated in a beautiful valley, and its manor, now the property of
the Sydney family, was one of those given by William the Conqueror to
Bishop Odo of Bayeux. Its Early English church contains relics of a
Norman building that formerly occupied its site, and it ranks with that
of St. Mary {99} Cray and the remains of that of Ruxley amongst the
most interesting ecclesiastical survivals in the eastern counties of
England. The church of St. Paul's Cray, which presents in its
dignified beauty a marked contrast to the commonplace buildings of the
modern mills that now make up the greater part of the village, is a
noble cruciform structure with a grand nave upheld by massive pillars,
a well-preserved piscina and other characteristic features. It should
be studied with the somewhat earlier church of All Saints in the
neighbouring village of Orpington, in which the transition from the
Norman to the Gothic style can be very distinctly traced. The western
doorway in the entrance porch, of which there is an ancient holy-water
stoup, is one of the most beautiful examples of Norman work in England,
and the piscina and sedilia in the chancel are also very fine.
[Sidenote: Orpington]
Orpington, the name of which is supposed to signify rising springs, is
a typical Kentish village in the heart of the hop country, and is
closely associated with the memory of John Ruskin, many of whose famous
books were produced at his private printing-press there. It owns, in
addition to its beautiful church, a number of fine old houses,
including the fifteenth-century Priory now in private possession, with
massive walls and good Tudor windows, and the mansion known as Bark
Hart, in which the first owner and builder, Perceval Hart, entertained
Queen Elizabeth, which probably occupies the site of the old
manor-house.
{100}