ON A RECENT SUBSIDENCE AT MUCKING, ESSEX. 247
beneath it, the ancient inhabitants were evidently familiar with
the knowledge of practical geology necessary to prevent them
from wasting their time and labour in profitless excavations.
Indeed, the number of deneholes known to exist in this district
suggests that it was one in which deneholes, or secret subterranean
storehouses, were specially advantageous or even necessary to
the residents within its borders in early times. And a glance at
the geological map seems to indicate why this was so. Proximity
to that great highway, the Thames, was once a matter of much
greater importance and advantage to the people of Kent and
Essex than can easily be realised now. But if we look at the
course of the river we may note that spots close to it, and yet
sufficiently high to be above the reach of floods, and con-
sequently suitable for settlements, are not very numerous. We
must remember, too, that in early times the marshes were not
easily traversed as they now are, inasmuch as they were not
enclosed by the banks which now exclude the water even at the
highest tides. But the district in question has places on it which
must always have been specially suited for settlement at Pur-
fleet, West Thurrock, Grays Thurrock, and East Tilbury, close
to the river, while Stanford-le-Hope and Mucking had a stream
allowing the passage of boats to and from the Thames. On the
other hand, the great drawback inherent in these advantages was
the special temptation offered by the district to piratical raiders
coming up the Thames, especially in times before and after the
Roman occupation, when there was no Count of the Saxon Shore
to keep pirates in check. Part of a piratical squadron might
land on the eastern side of the Essex promontory at Stanford-le-
Hope, the rest of the crews at Grays Thurrock or Purfleet, or at
some spot on the Mardyke. Gravesend, on the Kentish shore,
would be equally eligible as a site for dwellings, but its
inhabitants, on the landing of pirates, would not find themselves
liable to have their retreat inland cut off, as would the dwellers
on the Essex promontory opposite. Hence, probably, a special
demand for, and supply of, the secret storehouses known as dene-
holes, which might also during a raid serve as hiding places for
women and children, while the fighting-men drew the attention
of the invaders elsewhere.1
1 Those who fail to realise how mighty a terror pirates were but one thousand years ago
to dwellers on the banks of the Thames and other rivers, should read the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle from the year 787 onwards, and remember that only the more important raids are
mentioned.