ESSEX RIVERS AND THEIR NAMES. 289
epithet.48 But, in regard to the river now under notice, it is
clear that the epithet has become crystallized (so to speak)
into a true name. Yet the earliest use of it, as such, which I
have been able to trace is in a Survey dated 1767,49 when the
river in question was called the "Marr-ditch." It was name-
less on the maps of Chapman and Andre (1777) and Greenwood
(1824). Since then, however, the river has been known
generally as the Mardyke.
(9).—The Crouch (length about 24 miles) rises at a spot
rather over a mile south from Billericay and on the boundary-
line between Great Burstead and Laindon50; which boundary
it follows and defines for about two miles. It flows on, mainly
eastward, through Wickford and Runwell, for eight miles, to
Battlesbridge, where it becomes, at high tide, a fine navigable
water-way, 16 miles long, with "reaches" like those of
its near-neighbour the Thames, though at low tide it is restricted
to a narrow channel, with extensive mud-flats on each side.
For so short and insignificant a river, it has a remarkably-long
and roomy estuary—twice as long as the river which feeds it
and with a mouth fully a mile-and-a-haif wide between Holli-
well Point on its north side and Foulness Point on its south side.51
Moreover, a mile or two from its mouth, it receives the Roch,
another very short river, but with a long estuary half-a-mile
wide.
So notable a waterway must have had a regular name from
the earliest times. It is spoken of as the Crouch by the early
writers on our Essex rivers—Saxton (1576), Norden (1594), and
Speed (1610).52 The name must be, however, very much
older than their time; for, without doubt, many of the earlier
Saxon and Danish invaders of this country must have landed
in such a spacious estuary. If its name be not of Keltic origin,
as is not improbable, it is probably from the Old Norman-French
croche, a crook, crozier, or crotch. The term is sometimes applied
48 From O.E. mere, a bog, marsh, or mere, and dic, a dyke, ditch, or drain. In some cases 
(as, for instance, one quoted above: see p. 287), it may mean boundary-ditch, from O.E. mare,
a boundary, and dic, as above.
40 Brit. Mus. Roy. MS. xii., 48, p. q, r, and w.
50 Its exact source (which is within about a mile of one of the sources of the Wid) is indicated
precisely by an inscription on the latest Ordnance Maps.
51 As Prof. Gregory has shown (op. cit., p. 45), it is the estuary by which, in geologic times,
the Chelmer discharged itself into the North Sea.
52 Harrison, for some inscrutable reason, speaks of it (op. cit., i., pp. 44 and 107) as
the "Burne."