Wisbech, however, is not by any means a "dead city." It has 10,000 inhabitants, and keen local ambitions, which have developed an excellent museum and other up-to-date municipal equipment. Modern energy and science have, moreover, made so effective a waterway through the ten miles of silted-up estuary that vessels of 3,000 tons can now, at high tide, reach the wharf. Such, however, are almost unknown visitants. Last year (1909) the vessels clearing from the port numbered 209, of 36,000 tons in all. Two of these are registered at Wisbech itself, as are also twelve sea-fishing boats. A characteristic photograph of Wisbech's shipping is given by Mrs. Hughes in the "Geography of Cambridgeshire" (p. 118). Other photographs (pp. 47, 48) show the great height to which the tide rises in the river, there being a difference of over twenty feet between high and low water mark. The Nene still has its outfall here, and flows through the town in a fine sweep locally called the Brink.
It is hard to believe that this Brink is not the Beach whence the name of the town is vulgarly supposed to be derived. But you must not suggest this to a Wisbech man. The single vowel is an integral part of local faith and local pride, and to insert the "a" is to show yourself a hopeless outsider. With it the name would come from Ouse-beach (like Land-beach and Water-beach near Cambridge). Without it the derivation is Ouse-beck. This last syllable is a Scandinavian word, well known throughout the north of England, and there signifying a running brook. Throughout the Fenland it is frequently used for a drain. But can the mighty Well Stream of the Ouse, at its tidal outfall here, have ever suggested either drain or brook to the men of old who named the place? And can these have been Scandinavians?
Leverington.
The chief oversea trade of Wisbech is in timber from Norway; and it also does a large traffic in fruit, flowers, and vegetables, which are extensively grown hereabouts. In this neighbourhood, moreover, may be seen a much rarer cultivated crop, nothing less primitive than the woad with which the ancient Britons dyed their bodies; though it is a mistake to suppose that this dye took the place of clothing, for as far back as history traces them they were quite fairly civilised, and used woad only for tattooing, like sailors.[247] It is now used for dyeing cloth. "An old woad mill, built of turf blocks arranged in the ancient herring-bone pattern, with a timber and reed-thatched roof, can still be seen at the village of Parson's Drove, about six miles from Wisbech. The plant (Isatis tinctoria) grows about six feet high, and has a blue-green leaf and bright yellow flower; the people still call it by its old name, wād. The young plants are delicate, and the crop requires much care. It is weeded by men and women clad in hardened skirts and leathern knee-caps, who creep along the ground and take out the weeds with a curious little handspade which fits into the palm. The plant is picked by hand. The leaves are crushed to a pulp in the mill by rude conical crushing wheels dragged round by horses, and are then worked by hand into large balls and laid on "fleaks" of twined hazel, or on planks, in special sheds, for three months to dry. After this, the balls are thrown together, mixed with water and allowed to ferment in a dark house for five or six weeks. The woad is then rammed into casks and is ready to be sold to cloth manufacturers."[248]
Wisbech plays but little part in history. Its position at the convergence of the two great Roman sea-walls, east and west of the estuary, makes it pretty certain that they must have had a station here; but, if so, it has wholly passed out of memory. Wisbech Castle is said to have been built by William the Conqueror, and certainly existed in the time of King John. It passed into the possession of the Bishops of Ely, and was rebuilt by two famous holders of the See, Bishop Morton, the designer and excavator of Morton's Leam,[249] and Bishop Alcock, the Founder of Jesus College, Cambridge.[250] Both these prelates were singularly thoroughgoing reformers. The former went into minute details about the dress of his clergy, forbidding them to wear gaudy attire (such as "lirripoops" or gowns open in front like a present-day M.A. gown), and charging them straitly to cut their hair "so that all men may see their ears." And the latter was an indefatigable pulpiteer; one of his University sermons is recorded to have lasted three mortal hours on end.
Bell Tower, Tydd St. Giles.