Of the four rivers of this name in England three are spelt with the final “e,” and this stream in the north-eastern portion of the county is often described as the Essex Colne to distinguish it from its namesake, which is a tributary of the Thames. Rising near Moynes Park, the river pursues a south-easterly course to Great Yeldham, a village embowered in trees, amongst which must be reckoned, as of particular account, the gnarled oak, of which the inhabitants are not a little proud. A larger village is Castle Hedingham, standing upon its breezy acclivity, and favoured with a delightful prospect of highly cultivated valley. What remains of the Castle which gave name to the place is in grand condition, the great tower or keep, with its stupendously solid walls, standing almost externally entire upon its turfy mound. The Norman masonry is square and lofty, with walls twelve feet in thickness, and the keep, as a whole, is 100 feet high. So well preserved is the structure, that the grooves for the portcullis in the gateway facing the west might still be used for their original purpose.
Halstead, lower down the widening river, is doubtless what its name signifies, a healthy place, covering the gentle ascent from the stream. The market is one of the oldest in the country, and for many years the population has prosecuted the trade of straw-plaiting, and manufactures of silk and crape. A tributary feeds the Colne from the extensive lake of 100 acres in the park of Gosfield Hall, three miles below Halstead. Gosfield Hall was the seat of the Nugents, one of whom wrote the life of Hampden, and it afterwards came into the hands of the Marquis of Buckingham. Four villages, three on the left and one on the right, take a portion of their name from the stream:—Colne Engaine, so called from its ancient lords of the manor; Earls Colne, once the residence of the Earls of Oxford; White Colne, a modern rendering of Colne-le-Blanc; and Wakes Colne. This is the Colne village near which, at Chappell, the valley is crossed by the Stour Valley railway viaduct, 1,000 feet in length, and 80 feet above the level of the stream.
By the villages of Fordham, West Bergholt, and Lexden, the river at length, by devious ways, arrives at Colchester, the largest town in Essex, the ancient fortified post which historians nominate the capital of the Trinobantes; and Mr. J. H. Round, who has written a history of Colchester Castle, identifies the town with the British Camalodunum. A similar honour, as we have seen, has been claimed for Maldon on the Blackwater. This “hill-town at the bend of the river” has figured often in history, and the relics exhibited in the Colchester Museum, and the writings of early historians, sufficiently warrant us in beginning with the Romans. The number of remains unearthed at Colchester has been enormous, and Romans, Saxons, and Danes, in succession, occupied this valuable position on the eastern coast. It became the point of contention in civil war, sent ships and men to Edward III., was visited by both Mary and Elizabeth, and was a staunch contributor of men and money to the Parliament against Charles I.
The river Colne, to which Colchester owes so much of its importance past and present, is navigable to Hythe, where the newest bridge, a construction of iron, replaced a brick bridge which was washed away by a winter flood in 1876. North Bridge is also an iron structure, and East Bridge, with its five arches, is of brick. The public buildings of Colchester are handsome and mostly modern, and the business of the place has been much increased since the extension of Colchester Camp as the headquarters of the Eastern Military District. The picturesque portion of the town must be looked for on the high ground where stand the remains of the Castle, supposed to have been built by the Romans. The monastic ruins in the town are also of more than common interest. The river Colne, widening as it goes, passes Wivenhoe Park, receiving a small tributary called the Roman river, and henceforth it is an estuary proper, with salt water, fishing-boats, oyster-beds, and marshes intersected by creeks dear to the wild-fowler. One of the best known landmarks for the incoming mariner is the tall tower of the church of the fishing village of Brightlingsea.
1. MILL ON THE COLNE. 2. HIGH STREET, COLCHESTER.
Dividing for some distance the counties of Essex and Suffolk, next in order comes the Stour, born upon the borders of the adjoining county of Cambridge, and running an almost parallel course with the Colne, but longer. Three brooks contend for the reputation of starting the Stour upon its journey, and the matter is not placed beyond dispute until the three become one. The river begins to act as a county boundary at Kedington, where Archbishop Tillotson was rector at the time of the Commonwealth. Birdbrook and Whitley, Baythorn Park and Stoke College, the village which gave a name to the Cavendishes, the old hall of Pentlow, the village of Long Melford, with Melford Hall and Kentwell Hall, and Liston Park opposite, bring us, with a curve of the river, to the borough town of Sudbury, the birthplace of the painter Gainsborough, and the point from whence the Stour becomes navigable. With smaller villages in close succession planted along its course, the Stour at Higham is joined by the Bret, and the district between Higham and the town of Manningtree is the veritable country which inspired in the heart of John Constable a love for rural scenes, and stored his mind with the knowledge which in after life served him so well. The artist was never tired of saying that these soft pastoral landscapes in the Stour valley made him a painter. He was born at East Bergholt, and numbers of his pictures were actually representations of scenes at Flatford. The flocks and herds, the swelling uplands at different periods of the year, the shade of the woods, the sunlight on the corn, the dripping waterwheel, the cottage, and the church—they are still the common objects of the country on either side of the river. At Manningtree the Stour is lost in the sea long ere it arrives at the thriving port of Harwich, where the channel is commanded by a port on either side, and vessels are directed by a couple of lighthouses, one of which is a lofty erection surmounted by a powerful lantern. A new town, the watering-place of Dovercourt, which in all probability has a future before it, is growing up a near neighbour to Harwich.
If the Stour has its Harwich, the river Orwell, which farther north joins the same estuary, has its Ipswich; and while the name of Constable has been mentioned in connection with the former, that of Crabbe belongs to the latter. The river, rising near the village of Gipping, is generally known to the country people by that name in its freshwater course; and it is formed by three small tributaries which become united near Stowmarket, the ancient county town of Suffolk. This town, celebrated in these later days for the manufacture of the new explosives, fed the fire of genius in former times, for hither came Milton to visit his tutor Young, and until modern times a mulberry tree in the vicarage garden was called the Milton tree. George Crabbe received the rudiments of his education at Stowmarket. The river subsequently passes Needham Market, and a number of country seats and villages; Barham being the parish where Kirby, the entomologist, lived for more than half a century pursuing his patient and successful studies. The stream is navigable to Stowmarket, and in the channel between that town and Ipswich there is a total descent of ninety-three feet, with fifteen locks in a distance of about sixteen miles. It is not until the river approaches the tidal end that it is termed the Orwell.