154 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
of the twelfth century available evidence should point to the
localisation of the wool trade in the north-eastern part of the
county.
The situation of the "woollen" monasteries may offer some
solution to the problem. They lie along the Lea Valley and
Stane Street and are placed about the highways leading to
Colchester and London from the western sheeplands. By the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we have definite information
that the wool of Essex was not thought of highly, since the price
appears to be remarkably low compared with that from other
districts. By 1594 John Norden tells his readers that there
were no great flocks to be seen in Essex, and that the finest wool
CLOTH TRADE C. 1509 A.D.
Fig. 2.
was obtained from the sheep raised on the several heaths in the
north-east of the county. The position of these heaths is shown
in Figure 2.
It is therefore suggested that the rudiments of any early
wool trade began in south-east Essex and then migrated north-
wards to take advantage of supplies of better quality wool
produced on the heathlands of this north-eastern district and
also brought into the County along the main roads leading
from the west. Possibly, too, Colchester and Maldon began
to exercise an attraction by offering a convenient mode of trans-
porting the cloth to London and the Continent by water.
The statement by Norden indicating that the best wool for
cloth-making in Essex was from a heath-bred sheep and not a