THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
249
Walthams—it is said to flow a distance of five miles through the parish of Great
Waltham—between Broomfield and Springfield to Chelmsford.
Here it receives the two important tributaries of the Cann and the Wid. The
former rises at High Easter and High Roding, and flows between Margaret
Roding and Good Easter to Chignal St. James, a little below which it is joined
by the Roxwell Brook, which flows round Fingrith Hall and the High Woods.
The latter flows from Doddinghurst and Blackmore, Shenfield, and Herongate,
through Buttsbury, Margaretting, Widford, and Writtle. It may be news to
some of the travellers on that great Essex highway—the Colchester line of the
Great Eastern Railway—that the flood water they so often see out from the
Mountnessing Brook, between Brentwood and Ingatestone stations, comes down
to Maldon to the same point as the river they cross just below Kelvedon station.
Four miles below Chelmsford this river receives on the left bank the New
Hall and Boreham Brook, and a little lower, at Little Baddow, it receives from
the other side the Sandon Brook, a considerable stream flowing from Stock and
the Hanningfields. The Ter runs from Felstead, within a mile, from the old
river and from Rumley Wood, Great Saling, within a mile of Pod's Brook, a
tributary of the Blackwater, through Little Leighs, Great Leighs, and Terling,
(to which parish it gives its name), under the main line of railway at the
Viaduct, near Crix Mill, through Hatfield Peverel, and falls into the Chelmer
about half-a-mile above Ulting Church. Between Hoe Mills and Beeleigh Mills
it receives a brook running from Little Baddow and Woodham Walter Common.
The tide flows up past Beeleigh Abbey to Beeleigh Mill.
There has been and still is considerable confusion about the Blackwater and
Chelmer rivers during the last mile of their separate existence. As has been
already said, they interchange their waters at many points from a consider-
able distance above Beeleigh Mill, but their streams are distinct now, if not in
times past, and it is the Chelmer that flows under Fullbridge, although in the
six-inch Ordnance map this is called the Blackwater, and some years ago a convic-
tion of the justices was made upon an information for an offence committed here
upon the river Blackwater, but upon appeal this conviction was quashed on the
ground that the river wasn't there at all. Only last year the Maldon borough
authorities had the satisfaction of setting both the Board of Trade, the Woods
and Forests Office, and the Local Government Board right in this important
particular, doubtless caused by the serious error in the Government survey. It
is Heybridge Creek, falling into the estuary just east of the railway station, that
is the river Backwater.
In the year 1765 a proposal was made to make the river Chelmer navigable
for 30-ton barges from Moulsham Bridge, Chelmsford, to Maldon Bridge, and an
Act of Parliament was obtained to that end. In those days, however, company
floating was not so readily accomplished as now, and although the capital asked
for was but £l3,000, sufficient was not subscribed. The details of the survey, by
Thomas Yeoman, for this project will be found in the "History of Essex, by a
Gentleman," vol. i., pp. 84-102, and in the same volume, at p. 93, we read, "We
here give the survey and report, made by the encouragers of this navigation, as
also their plan, curiously engraved on copper, and when we come to treat of
Maldon we shall then subjoin the survey plan, &c., given by several gentlemen
who strongly opposed it, leaving the reader, after a thorough inspection of the
whole, to form his own conjectures." I cannot learn that these plans were ever
published, and Yeoman's plan is only found in a few copies of the History. In
1762 the cost of land carriage "for coals and all other goods brought by waggons
from Maldom to Chelmsford" was 8s. per ten, and it was estimated that the water
carriage was to cost 2s., with a tell of 2s. 6d., in all 4s. 6d , a saving of 3s. on every
ton of goods so carried to Chelmsford, in addition to a considerable saving cf time
in transit. It was also estimated that then (1762), "under all the disadvantages of
the late war," at least 6,000 tons of coal and 4,000 tons of other goods were im-
ported into Maldon for the use of Chelmsford.
In the year 1793 (33rd George III.) another Act of Parliament was passed
"for making and maintaining the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation." In
this Act the proprietors' names are set forth, so in this instance, presumably, the
R