Barking Creek
No one knows when that was done. It was done, however. At some time or other a high earthwork was raised along the north and south banks of the river, enclosing the marshes, converting them into pasture and arable land, and keeping out the tides of Thames. It was a work of the most signal benefit; it was also a colossal piece of work, measured by hundreds of miles, for it was continued all round the islets and coast of Essex. It was a work requiring constant repair, though most of it has stood splendidly. The wall gave way, however, at Barking in the time of Henry the Second; at Wapping in the time of Elizabeth; at Dagenham early in the last century: at each of these places the repair of the wall was costly and difficult. The embankment left behind it a low-lying ground, rich and fertile; orchards and woods began to grow and to flourish upon it; yet it was still swampy in parts, numerous ponds lay about on it, streams wound their way confined in channels, and let out through the embankment at low tide by culverts.
Whether the bridge came before the embankment I cannot decide. Yet I think that the embankment came first; for the existence of Southwark—that of any part of South London—depended not on the bridge, but on the embankment and the ferry. Given, however, the embankment; the two causeways; the bridge; two ferries—one at St. Mary Overies and the other lower down, opposite the Tower: given, also, direct communication with Dover, with Thorney—thence with the midlands and the north: there could not fail to arise a settlement or town of some kind on the south of the Thames.
Let us next consider the conditions under which the town of Southwark began to exist and to continue for a great many years.
(1) There was no wall or any means of defence, except the marsh which surrounded it and prohibited the approach of an army except along the causeway.
(2) The ground lay low on either side the causeway, and south of the embankment. Although the tide no longer ebbed and flowed among the reeds and islets of the marsh, yet it was covered with small ponds, some of them stagnant, others formed by the many streams which flowed towards the culverts on the embankment, through which at low tide they escaped into the Thames; until some kind of drainage was attempted, the place caused agues and fevers for any who slept in its white miasma. In other words, not an embankment only, but drainage of some kind, had to be undertaken before life was possible on the marsh.
(3) There were no quays, no shipping, no merchants, no trade, on the south side. All merchandise coming up from the south for export at the port of London, all merchandise landed at the port for the south, had to be carried across the bridge.
(4) The crowds of people connected with the trade of London—the porters, carriers, drivers, grooms and stable-boys, stevedores, lightermen, sailors foreign and native, the employés of the merchants, their wives, women and children—all these people lived in London itself; they had their taverns and drinking shops; their sleeping places and eating places, in London; all the people employed in providing food and drink and sport, lived on the other side. South London had to be a place without trade, without noise, without disturbance of workmen, without broils among the sailors or fights among foreigners.
(5) It stood on the south bank of a river swarming with fish.