NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 27
the Conquest. In a history of Essex, published a hundred and twenty years ago,
the name is spelt four times with a 'w.' The Saxon derivation of Foulness is
Fugel, a fowl, and naese, a promontory. In very early English the word was
written Foulsnesse, Foulsnesse, the first 's' conclusively proving its meaning.
The farm of which the earliest mention is made is Nazewick, probably the Wick
of Fowlness, as then being nearest the Cape. There is, of course, another and
a far-fetched derivation of 'ness' or 'naze,' namely, nassa, a noose or snare ; in
support of which theory there is undoubted evidence of a former decoy pond in
the centre of the island, close to which the discovery of Roman remains was
made. 'Sir Guy de Rochford dyed in 1274, and besides the Manors of Rochford,
Burden, and Elsenham, held a hundred and twenty acres of marsh in Foulnes,
called Nassewyk.' His nephew, John de Rochford, dying in 1309, besides Naze-
wick, held the Marsh of Eastwodwick, afterwards held by Robert de Rochford.
William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton, possessed Middlewyk Marsh in 1343,
through whose successors, William and Humfrey de Bohun, the estate went to
Alianor, wife of Thomas of Woodstock, on whose tragic death it came to the
Crown. King Henry VI. granted these lands to Thomas Earl Ormond, from
whom they passed to the families of Bullen, Stafford, and Rich, and to the female
heirs of the Earl of Warwick, one of which brought it to the Right Honble.
Daniel, Earl of Nottingham. Thence it passed to the Earl of Winchilsea and
Nottingham. 'In the steward's account of Robert, Earl of Warwick, in 1651, the
quit rents of the Manor of Foulness amounted to £8 17s. 10d. Fowlness Hall,
that is, New Hall and Old Hall, were £150 per annum.' The old church of
Foulness was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, St. Thomas the Martyr, and All
Saints, and is described as a wooden fabric, about the middle of the island, of one
pace forty-seven feet long and twenty broad. At first called chapel institutive,
it was presented to by the Lady Joane de Bohun in 1386, and from that time
by lords of the manors ; but, being slenderly provided for, and the curate but little
resident, a chantry was founded in 1408 by the same Joane, Countess of Here-
ford, in whom, with the archbishop and other lords of the manor, the right of
patronage was vested. After the dissolution of chantries in 1547, this chapel was
erected into a rectory in 1554, the advowson being then the property of Richard
Lord Rich. 'Robert, Earl of Warwick, at the time of his decease, March 24,
1619, held the Manor of Fowlenes and divers lands, etc., called Nasewick,
Arundell Marsh, New Wicke, East Wicke, South Wicke, Muncken Barn, and
two marshes, in Packleshame and Wakering, parcel of the Manor of Fowlenes—
otherwise called Isle of Fowlenes.' 'In creeks round these islands are fed small
oysters called Wall-fleet oysters.' The remains of old counter walls, much more
distinctly marked on the island of Wallasea, are still to be seen on the higher
grounds of Fowlness, showing that the island was reclaimed at different periods.
In early modern English, fowl, a bird, was also spelt 'foul' and 'foule,'and in
middle English, 'foule,' 'fowel,' etc."
Dagenham and Dagnams.—In a short paper on "The Geology of the
District around Dagenham Breach, Essex" (Essex Nat., vol. iv., p. 142, Septem-
ber, 1892), I quoted from a well-section given by Mr. Whitaker ("Geol. Lond.,"
vol. ii., p. 18), the locality of which is there stated to be "Dagenhall Hall," as
showing the remarkable thickness of the London Clay beneath the River Drift
at that spot, which I then supposed to be the Hall about half a mile north of the
village of Dagenham. Mr. Whitaker, who appears to have obtained the details
of the well-section from the MSS, of Dr. J. Mitchell, held this view of the