A Dengie notebook
Graham Smith 48 The Meads, Ingatestone CM4 OAE
As it is my intention that this should be the first in a regular series of articles about the natural
history of the Dengie coast, it might be a good idea to set the scene for those who may be
unfamiliar with this corner of Essex. The Dengie peninsular extends eastwards from a rough
drawn line between North Fambridge and Mundon, following the banks of the Rivers
Blackwater and Crouch as far as Bradwell-on-Sea and Burnham-on-Crouch respectively;
the fifteen miles of coastline that link the village with the town - an area known simply as
The Dengie Flats - containing some of the most extensive and remotest areas of mudflats and
saltings in Essex. Three miles south of Bradwell Waterside there is a small outcrop of slightly
higher ground, on which stands the Chapel of St Peter's-on-the-Wall, a tiny Saxon church
built by St Cedd in the 6"' century. He may have chosen this spot for what was at first a
monastery because there was a ready source of building materials to hand, namely, the remains
of the Roman fort of Othona, which stood guard overlooking the Blackwater estuary for
hundreds of years, its inmates ready to respond to any sea borne incursion by Saxon raiders
or other undesirables. The church is fortunate to have survived into the modem age as in the
nineteenth century a large hole was knocked in one side of it and the building converted into
a barn and sometime afterwards the roof collapsed. Alas, it looks like a bam to this day,
partly because of the tasteless modern roof- which resembles that found on any old semi -
and partly due to the loss of the nave and chancel, which formerly gave it the shape of a
cross. The setting, though, remains sublime!
A hundred yards to the south of the Chapel, tucked away among the trees on the very
edge of the saltings, is Linnett's Cottage. This tiny, one bedroomed dwelling with its
weather-boarded walls and welsh slate roof is a recently designated Grade II Listed
Building. It was built during the Napoleonic wars, around 1790, to house two coastguards
- a sergeant and a private - whose job it was to run a signal station. Thirty or so years
later a family of so-called marsh-men, or professional Wildfowlers by the name of Linnett
took on a tenancy of the cottage that was to remain unbroken until 1958 when the last of
the line to live there, Walter Linnett, died at the age of eighty-two. Rumour has it that he
and his wife reared between eight and thirteen children in that house (the number grows
with the telling) - sleeping the new born infants in boxes in some of the cupboards - but
as with most country people of that era they doubtless spent most of their life out of
doors. Walter - as those who remember him can testify - was a very tough old man
indeed.
For the past thirty-five years or so the cottage has been rented by Malcolm Chettleburgh,
one of the founder members of Bradwell Bird Observatory. The Observatory began life
in 1953 with the purpose of recording bird migration along this part of the Essex coast.
The enthusiasm of those pioneers resulted in the construction, within a year, of two huge
heligoland traps in a nearby elm thicket and two hides on the nearby beaches.
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Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 40, January 2003