The Victoria History of the County of Kent/Volume I/Appendix II. On the Embankments of the Thames in Kent
Appendix II
On the embankments of the Thames in Kent
The embankments of the Thames below London as seen in their entirety present an appearance of completeness which somewhat exaggerates their importance. They are the result of the slow and creeping work of centuries. When the country was occupied by the Romans the low lands of the Thames were dry, that is not invaded with salt water. The river was fresh and very shallow, with meandering streams from the uplands adjacent. Large trees hundreds of years old, of such kinds as we have now growing, covered the bottoms and spread over the area of the present marshland, and everywhere are found Roman remains, pottery, and flint and chalk used in building. This level, which is a little below the Ordnance datum, may be called the Roman level. It is scarcely probable that any banks were needed here and none have been found of the Roman period ; nor can there be found any places indicating the least connexion between a Roman site and an embankment of any date. At the termination of the Roman period or soon after there came an irruption of the sea, which overthrew the trees and buildings and deposited over all grey tidal clay with salt water shells. The river became an estuary and has remained so ever since. The invasion of the sea was sudden, probably in the nature of a catastrophe, and accomplished the destruction of extensive settlements on the low shores and numerous islands eastward of the Medway mouth. This change was probably caused by a small subsidence of the land accompanied by so-called tidal waves. There are no banks for keeping out the tide known to be of Saxon date, except those of Littlebrook and Sittingbourne, and these were hythes of small size placed to haul up ships in winter and guard off storm floods and foes. To two of these can be assigned something of a date, viz., Littlebrook, which is mentioned as a celebrated place in a charter of Ethelred, a.d. 995. It was also one of the two ports of Dartford. The Sittingbourne hythe was apparently thrown up by Hasten in 893, and at the shoreworks at Lesnes is a similar hythe. There are other places which point to a similar use and period. Many enclosures are the result of the enterprise of the Religious houses situated on the adjacent hard shores in the neighbourhood of causeways and ferries. About the year 1000 what had been already done in reclaiming land was intermitted and abandoned to the sea.
The effective embankments in the estuary of the Thames, as we see them to-day, and which hedge in the river, are of no great antiquity. They are the result of piecemeal enclosures which have advanced side by side at right angles (so to speak) to the course of the stream from either shore, until a line was reached where the shore banks could be abandoned and their builders unite their labours in forming two long ones parallel to the current. This has been a long process, and weak places, great storms and inattention on the part of some of the riparian owners have been the frequent cause of their destruction, and required careful watching and repeated mending. In the earlier part of their existence the walls were thrown up to win the land from the water, and it was not until the union of the parallel walls had been nearly or quite completed, that it was perceived that a much more important thing to the country at large had occurred, viz., the deepening and straightening of the common water-way. For as the parallel banks approached each other the tidal currents ran more swiftly and the scour increased, so that the waterway was shortened and larger ships could travel further inland. Then too it was found that this was not a matter which could be left to small owners who were careless and narrow-minded, but was a matter for State interference.
In the twelfth century the monks of Barking and Stratford enclosed much marsh, but the pieces cannot be identified. Lesnes Abbey is not recorded to have received enclosed marshland on its foundation in 1179 a.d. The monks however enclosed a part of their marsh in 1279 a.d. and the rest within the next twelve years after. These are early dated examples. That of Lesnes is peculiarly interesting, as we can identify one or more of the banks then thrown across the marshes. The plan here followed to obtain the end in view was simple and bolder than most of those pursued on the Thames. A much more cautious method was the commoner, which consisted of running out a small bank from the shore a few yards and returning to the shore again, then from some point on that line other essays were made until a large area was enclosed. Not unfrequently the earlier banks were cleared away for material to be used up again. In some old deeds this was expressly prohibited. A row of old manor ways which have long been superseded when ending in a line may be seen to indicate the termination of the fresh marsh. Some of these ways are still called walls, though now levelled. Of such are the 'Farthing,' 'Ham,' and 'Meads' walls at Cliffe. Not much enclosure is practised now, but the end of the last century saw some extensive efforts at re-embanking at Slayhill and Milford Hope. But with the wash of the sea consequent on the destruction of some islands which acted as breakwaters, little good can now come of such labours so far down.[1]
- ↑ For maps and sections of marshland works. Arch. Journ. xlii. 269, and Proc. Geologists' Ass. xl. 210.