PLUMSTEAD.
Below Woolwich the Thames flows through low-lying lands, flat and marshy, bounded at the distance of a mile or more by thickly-wooded hills, at the feet of which nestle here and there grey church towers, and little red villages, and occasional small towns. Looking down over Plumstead, which is a singularly prosaic place in a remarkable fine situation, the river is a mere thin streak, running between artificial banks, like those of a Dutch canal. Over the green marshland below us the river was once wont to spread itself like a great inland sea; and at various periods, since stout walls were built to confine it to a reasonable course, it has burst open its barriers and flooded the country for mile on mile. In this manner was created Dagenham Breach, where the river wall now encloses Dagenham Lake, famous for its bream fishing. On the Plumstead side the river wall was broken down in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and repaired at tremendous cost. Dagenham Breach, on the opposite shore, between where the River Roding and Raynham Creek open on the Thames, was made so late as 1707, when the swollen river, breaking down its barriers, rushed over 1,000 acres of land, and carried 120 acres into the stream. The land swept away made a sand-bank a mile in length, and stretching half-way across the river. The damage was afterwards repaired by Captain Perry, who had been engineer to Peter the Great, and who was voted £15,000 for an undertaking which had cost him £40,472 18s. 8¾d.
The land enclosed by the Thames’ walls is mainly waste, but has a quiet, singular beauty, which would be more appreciated, doubtless, but for the fact that here, on either bank, London pours its two immense streams of sewage into the river. Where the Plumstead and the Erith marshes join each other, there may be seen at low tide a couple of culverts, from which issue, twice a day, two thick, black, poisonous streams. Just above them there is a substantial pier, and further back, a large white building with a tall chimney, beside which the Nelson column would seem to be dwarfed. Further back still, surrounding a covered reservoir, there is a quadrangle of small, neat houses, occupied by some of the workpeople of the London County Council. These are the sewage works at Cross Ness. They are surrounded by gardens, inside which the ground rises abruptly to the height of the dykes. All around seems clean and pleasant, but underneath, built on arches of the Roman aqueduct pattern, there is a huge reservoir, which receives most of the sewage of the south side of the Thames. The large white building which was first discernible is the pumping station, where there are four great engines capable of lifting 120,000,000 gallons of sewage in the twenty-four hours. For sixteen hours each day the sewage is being pumped up from low-lying culverts into the reservoir; for four hours at each tide it is being liberated into the Thames, which thereafter, for some miles, becomes a pestilential river, bearing its dark and unwholesome burden up and down and round about with every tide.
One might stand on the quiet Plumstead marshes and suspect nothing whatever of all this. From thence the river is made invisible by its dyke; but one observes, with an interest not unmixed with wonder, the funnel of a steamer skirting along the level landscape, or the rich brown sail of a Thames barge, or the bellying canvas of one of those sailing-vessels which, to the number of 5,000 annually, still make use of the port of the Thames.
The larger sewer works of what is called the Northern Outfall are situated on the opposite side of the river, at Barking, where there still remains a relic of the once famous Barking Abbey—the ancient curfew tower, from which the inhabitants were wont to be warned to extinguish their fires. Barking Abbey, which was a foundation of the Benedictine order, dates back to the year 670, and was the first convent for women in England. It originated with the Saxon saint, Erkenwald, Bishop of London, whose sister, Ethelburgha, was its first abbess. This lady made the convent, so renowned that two queens—the wives of Henry I. and of King Stephen—thought it an honour to be appointed to the office which so distinguished a woman had held. All the abbesses of Barking were baronesses in their own right, and took precedence of all abbesses in England. The last of the long line was Dorothy Barley, who was compelled to surrender the abbey to “Bluff King Hal” in 1539. The abbey church stood just outside the present churchyard, and was 170 feet long, with a transept of 150 feet. The curfew tower is the old gate of the outer court, and the room, of which the window is shown in the engraving on the next page, was anciently the chapel of the Holy Rood. In the near neighbourhood is the house from which Lord Monteagle carried to the king a warning not to attend the Houses of Parliament on the day fixed for the carrying out of the Gunpowder Plot.
DAGENHAM MARSHES.
In Barking—sometimes called Tripcock—Reach we are afloat on a tide of sewage. It discolours the water all around; it is sometimes churned up by the wheels of the paddle-steamers; the odour of it assails the nostrils at every turn; and yet Barking Reach is, with this exception, an altogether delightful place on a spring or summer day, all the more delightful if the day is one which follows upon or precedes a day of rain; for the sky should be full of grey clouds and capricious light to do justice to the landscape below Barking Reach. Fortunately, even a vast burden of sewage, the refuse of the mightiest city in the world, cannot destroy the natural beauty of the river. By Erith and at Greenhithe it beslimes the low, muddy flats left exposed by the receding tide; but out in the centre of the Thames how can it avail against the influence of wind, and cloud, and sunlight? The river smiles and sparkles, and reflects grey cloud and blue sky, just as if it had no secrets to hide; and over the flat meadow-lands the shadows chase each other like happy children at play. Steamers, barges, sailing-vessels, coming and going, are almost as frequent here as in the higher reaches. It is the peculiarity of the Thames that it is never forsaken, or solitary, or at rest.