SUBSIDENCE OF THE THAMES ESTUARY. 165
position of the present parish church, on a gravel ridge overlooking
the creek, a common site for a Saxon church. It was the most
southern, if not the only, church in the district ; its name,
adopted later for the principal manor and the parish itself, was
appropriate. Hamstel Lane led to it from the Jutish cemetery
and hamstels at Prittlewell.
There were Viking settlements in this region ; the retreat
of Hasten to Shoebury after his defeat at Bemfleet may have
been influenced by the certainty of a friendly reception by his
compatriots. It has been asserted that the physical character-
istics of the inhabitants and certain place-names suggest a Viking
origin. The whole matter is somewhat controversial, but
attention may b drawn to the occurrence of such names as
reach, applied to river stretches on the Crouch and Thames ;
ness, as at Barling Ness, Foulness and Shoebury Ness ; wick,
as Wickford, many farms and low lands bordering on viks or
creeks: and the two thorpes of Southchurch. The creek or vik
of Southchurch offered a homelike site, suitable for small vessels,
and two Viking settlements were made at its eastern end and
formed the nuclei of two of the Southchurch manors at a later
period. South Thorpe is now Thorpe Hall. The position of
North Thorpe is less certain, ; it may have supplanted the
Saxon settlement at Samuel's Farm and included forest land
north of the Shoebury road ; this area is still known as "Pigs'
Gate," i.e., Swine road (O.N. gata = road) ; as a manor it sup-
ported 34 swine at Domesday.
A hamlet persisted on the old prehistoric site at the head of
the creek at Bournesgreen (the green of the bourne or stream).
Pottery, with sagging bases and rims like those of the12th-13th
century midden at Rayleigh Castle, has been found there ; the
inhabitants probably threw into the creek the 13th century
pottery recovered recently from the tidal clays.
The principal manor, Southchurch, comprised all the parish
to the north of the creek. It belonged to Christ Church, Canter-
bury ; in the middle of the 12th century a church, Holy Trinity,
was built and named after the mother church. The church and
most of the western part of the manor were on gravel beds
which provided arable land and parkland. East of the church
was the Wick Farm (Farm of the Vik or Creek) and the glebe
land ; these were almost entirely on the London Clay, which