THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
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and only the skill of man has availed, by means of artificial sea-walls, to win a bit
of arable land and dwelling-stead from the maw of the ever-grasping sea.
Below Wallasey Point, the Roach or Broomhill enters the Crouch from the
south, its right bank and that of the Crouch in the remainder of its course being
the island of Fowlness. Southward of Wallasey are four other islands, separated
by a network of creeks. Two of these, New England and Havengore are
connected at low water with Fowlness and with the mainland by the broad expanse
of the Maplin Sands on which the three creeks shrink to mere threads. The
remaining islands, Potton and Rushley, are surrounded on all sides by permanent
waterways.
The area of the delta is variable, from the erosion and deposition consequent on
changes in direction and force of the wind, the tidal currents, and the volume of
water descending from the enormous area of the basins of the Thames, the Medway,
and the Blackwater. These changes affect not only the part of the area that lies
between tide-marks, but the enclosed land also, and, whilst fresh enclosures take
place from time to time north of the Crouch, the owners of land to the south have
in several places had to abandon a part of their property to tidal influence, or to
be at much expense in protecting the banks with stone facing and piles.
All the islands, and the equally wide expanse of the "marshes" on the north of
the Crouch, present a practically dead-level surface, with depressions at intervals
indicating the former courses of creeks. The general surface is as nearly as possible
at half-tide level. The saltings outside the sea wall are some eight feet higher
owing to perpetual saturation and other causes, but soon sink after enclosure. The
sea walls are about 15 feet high, 20 feet wide at the base, and 4 feet at the top.
They are faced where necessary with Kentish ragstone and chalk, sometimes
cemented but generally wedged dry between rows of piles.
The clayey soil of the enclosed land is but five or six feet in thickness, resting on
sand saturated with salt water. This accounts for the general absence of trees ;
ditches take the place of hedges and serve at once as boundaries and drains, being
wide and deep in consideration of the absence of fall and the necessary closure of
the sluice gates against the tidal waters. For water-supply, artesian wells, driven
to some one or other of the subordinate beds of sand in the London Clay at about
400 feet from the surface, yield a barely adequate amount to the 14 or 15 farms
that possess such. For the rest, rain-water caught in butts or tanks, and for the
poorer cottages in ponds, constitutes the sole supply.
The population of Fowlness is about 700, rising by immigration at harvest-time
to 1,000. The church, which constitutes an important sea-mark, was built in 1849,
and the parish records of its predecessors range only to 1691. The earliest place
of worship was erected in the 12th century. Records of the island range back to
Anglo-Saxon times, and Roman remains have been found at more than one spot.
As the vessel steamed along she was skirting part of the "Dane-land" of Essex,
where began the Danish conquest of England, and where so many traces still exist of
the early settlements of the Vikings, in the place-names, folk-names, and even in the
ethnological character and dialect of the people. "Save in the Roman colonies
and other neighbourhoods, the landfolk in the length and breadth of the Essex
seaboard bespeak the pure Teutonic type—stalwart, well set, fair-haired men and
women, with fine profiles, Roman noses, clear blue eyes, and with an open and
frank look, ready speaking and cheery. Here also may be seen the antithesis of
the fair men—the descendants of the primitive Celts, or more probably of the
Romano-Celtic settlers—short, dark-haired, small 'bullet'-headed men ; some
abnormally fat; in conversation dry and terse ; a hasty and excitable race, bearing
all the marks of their Celtic blood. This type is in a minority here among the
islands and along this coast, but at the Roman stations of Chelmsford and Col-
chester they form nine-tenths of the population ; and one without much stretch of
the imagination can fancy himself in a continental town."2
2 "The Daneland of Essex," Chambers's Journal, August 18th, 1883.