ESSEX RIVERS AND THEIR NAMES.
299
(Sturmere in Domesday Book), where there is (or was formerly) a
large mere, now drained, which gave name to the parish. This mere
is often said to be the source of the River Stour, but it is not
so ; for that river merely flows (or flowed) through it.84 Thence,
the river flows east-north-east for nine miles, past Ashen and
Pentlow, to Long Melford, where it turns southward and later
eastward, continuing past Sudbury, the Hennys, Bures, Worm-
ingford, Nayland, and Dedham to Manningtree. There it
begins to widen into its splendid estuary, ten miles long, which,
at its mouth, combines with that of the Suffolk Orwell, forming
what used to be. called "Orwell Haven," one of the finest harbours
on the east coast of England. Through it, both rivers enter
the sea together at Harwich.85
The Stour is, next to the Thames, the most historic of Essex
rivers ; for it formed the dividing-line between the kingdom
of the East Angles to the north and that of the East Saxons to
the south some fifteen centuries ago, and has since formed the
dividing-line between the counties of Suffolk and Essex. More-
over, its name is probably much older than its recorded history.
The Saxon Chronicle, written about 1025, records that, in 885,
Alfred sent a naval force from Kent to East Anglia, adding
that, "As soon as they came to the mouth of the Sture,87 then
"met them sixteen ships of vikings, and they fought against them
"and captured all the ships and slew the men." Roger de
Hovenden also mentions88 this fight at the mouth of the Stour
(ad ostium flluminis Slur). The Stour is further mentioned as
a boundary in the will of one AElfled, made 972.89 Again, the
river (or, rather, Sturmer) is referred to in "The Battle of
Maeldun," written in 991,90 wherein one Leofsuncu (who came,
apparently, from Sturmer), disdaining to save himself by flight
after the fall of Brithnoth, declaims that—
84 Harrison says (op. cit., i., p. 105), for instance, that the "Sture or Stoure" (as he
calls it) "ariseth at Stoure-meere, which is a poole conteining twentie acres of ground [or, rather
"water] at the least, the one side whereof is full of alders, the other of reeds, wherein the great
"store of fish there bred is not a little succoured."
85 Harrison (op. et. loc. cit.) mistook this estuary for that called "Idumanius" by Ptolemy
(see ante, p. 296), because it has within it "a prettie towne named Manitree, which carieth some
"shadow of that ancient name" ; but the fact that Ptolemy places Camulodunum (Colchester)
to the north of it identifies it conclusively. At Ramsey, close to its mouth, the Stour receives a
small stream rising at Wix and flowing through Great and Little Oakley, which Harrison (op.
et. loc. cit.) calls the "Ocleie Drill," "drill" being an old name for a trickling stream or rill. At
the mill above Ramsey Bridge, he adds, "I was once almost drowned, by reason of the ruinous
bridge which leadeth over, the stream being there very great."
87 Written Stufe, owing to a scribal error.
88 Annals of Roger de Hovenden, i., p. 56 (London, 1853).
89 See Thorpe Dipt. Angl. Aevi Saxonicum, p. 525 (1895).
90 See ante, p. 295.