CADHAM HALL: PORTRAIT OF SAMUEL BUTLER.
The Crouch rises from a couple of springs in Little Bursted and Langdon, the district lying between the high and picturesque uplands of these parts, Billericay (where the Romans had a station) and Langdon Hill. A small stream for a while, the Crouch passes several villages, the branches joining forces at Ramsden Crays; it becomes navigable for barges at Battle Bridge, and for sea-going brigs and schooners at Hull Bridge, near which place the scenery is pretty and undulating. From North Fambridge, however, the normal marsh-land of the estuary begins to assert itself, and Burnham is to all intents and purposes the seaport of this portion of the Hundreds—a local term applying to the aguish levels between the Crouch and the Colne, which latter stream will presently engage our attention. Before leaving the Crouch, however, the village of Canewdon should be mentioned, as being well situated above the flats, and as being in the neighbourhood of a battlefield upon which Canute defeated Edmund Ironside. The discovery of relics from time to time shows that the Romans as well as the Danes were located on the shores of the Crouch, and the ancient village of Rayleigh is claimed to have been the home of the Saxon. The mineral waters of Hockley Spa are credited with peculiar virtues, and the place is in consequence growing in importance.
The Blackwater, sometimes called the Pant, which is the next river as we proceed northwards, waters a pleasant, flourishing, and populous part of the county of Essex. It is the kind of landscape that delights the agriculturist, and that gives to rural England its distinctive charm, its combination of pasture and arable land, wood and water, village and town. The Blackwater rises near the borders of Cambridge, not far from Saffron Walden, the wooded slope of the Saxon, the strategic position upon which the Britons had formed an ancient encampment, and Geoffrey de Mandeville built his castle in the early days of the Norman Conquest; the place where in more recent times the cultivation of the saffron suggested a suitable prefix to “Weald den.” The tower and spire of Radwinter Church forms a conspicuous object from the surrounding country, but the church has been restored and enlarged in our own times. Here, towards the close of the sixteenth century, Robert Harrison, the author of the “Decay of the English Long Bow,” and an historical description of the “Land of Britaine,” was rector. Lower down the river, in the village church of Hempstead, a monument stands to the memory of William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, but the hall where Harvey’s brother Eliab resided no longer exists. Butler is said to have written the greater part of “Hudibras” at Cadham Hall, below Shalford; and at Finchingfield, on a hilly site near a tributary of the main stream, Spains Hall, an Early Tudoresque mansion in a fine park, represents the free hand of the Conqueror, who gave the estate to one of his Normans.
MALDON.
Bocking Church, as we descend the river, now running almost due south, stands high, and is of some note as a building of the time of Edward III., in which ministered the Dr. Gauden who, in the opinion of some of the authorities, was the author of Eikon Basilike. Bocking is virtually an outlying suburb of the neat market town of Braintree, where a colony of Flemings, settling in the time of Elizabeth, founded the weaving establishments which, with ironworks, corn mills, and malting-houses, maintain the present population in general prosperity. The vale and park of Stisted succeed, and by-and-bye the old-fashioned little town of Coggeshall, partly covering the rising ground of one of the river banks. Weaving is still carried on, though not to the extent of former days, when the town was a valuable centre of the woollen manufacture; and of the Cistercian Abbey founded by Stephen and Maud nothing remains but an antiquated barn appropriating portions of the ruins. John Owen, chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, was born at Coggeshall; and Bishop Bonner probably resided at Feering Bury Manor House, by the village of Feering, nearer Kelvedon, where the Blackwater is crossed by a strong, handsome bridge. Felix Hall is the show-place of the neighbourhood, and its noble park and the works of art contained in the mansion attract numerous visitors. Another beautiful specimen of “the stately homes of England” is Braxted Lodge, perched upon an eminence, with commanding views of one of the most richly cultivated prospects to be found in all Essex, and including, amongst the landscape features of the lovely demesne, a lake some twenty acres in extent. Tiptree, once a notable waste, boasting of nothing but heath, within the memory of living man became even more notable as Tiptree Hall Farm, which was created out of most unpromising materials into a model homestead by the late Mr. Alderman Mechi, a scientific agriculturist who expended large sums of money in machinery for the treatment of sewage and irrigation. The town of Witham, on the further side, stands on the tributary Brain.
MAP OF THE EAST ANGLIAN RIVERS.