172
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
Abbey, with other English Religious Houses, was dissolved, by
order of Henry VIII, in 1538, and the property was given to one
of his friends.1 To-day all outward traces of the Abbey have
disappeared, although it is probable that many of the white
squared stones built into the walls of the Channelsea River, which
once bordered the Abbey grounds, and seen also in the walls of
others of the Lea channels, may have come from the Abbey ruins
to repair weak places.
It was to the district called "Mill Meads" that our first
expedition (A) was taken, namely, the land south of Stratford
High Street (where it corresponds with Queen Maud's Causeway),
between the Abbey Mills Pumping Station on the east, and the
new Flood Channel, connecting the three Mills Wall River with
the Channelsea River, on the west and south.
The second district (B) lies north of Stratford High Street,
and is bounded by Pudding Mill River on the west, and extends
as far north and beyond Knobs Hill Cottage, and to the
City Mill River on the east.2 Further visits were made along
the City Mill River and the Channelsea River.
To the passer by along the High Street, this "waste" would
seem to have little charm, yet closer inspection shows it to have
a romance of its own. We found that the great colonies of
seeding plants attracted flocks of Sparrows, Starlings, Green-
finches, Chaffinches and Linnets, together with Larks and
Meadow-pipits, Pied Wagtails, a Thrush and a Robin. I have
seen from the train a Kestrel hovering over the "waste," so we
may be sure that mice and voles also abound there. On October
8th, a Wheatear flew up from a stream-bed and ran along the
raised ground not far from us. This must have been one of the
"passage migrants," i.e., birds that breed in the far north and
return south later than our summer residents, who leave us early
in September.3 From the Channelsea River by the old Abbey
Flour Mills, now no longer working after eight centuries of use,
looking south to the Osier Hope, we watched in the sunshine
1 At the time of the Dissolution West Ham Abbey was given to Sir Peter Meautis, who
ultimately owned [beside the Monastery building] 10 messuages [dwelling-houses with out-
buildings], 10 tofts [— homesteads], 4 water-mills, 10 gardens, 300 acres of arable land, 200 acres
of meadow, 100 acres of pasture, 50 acres of wood, 300 acres of marsh, 40 acres of red ground,
wet ground and osier hopps, 1 fishery from the mouth of the Lea. See Morant's History of Essex,
ed. II. (1815), vol. 1, p. 9.
2 Maps showing the district of West Ham in the early 18th century, in 1873, and in 1936
are given in Fifty Years a Borough, the Story of West Ham, edited by D. McDougall (1936).
3 See Witherby's Practical Handbook of British Birds (1920), p. 429.