ID: HTK_016 / Herbert W. Tomkins

TitleMarsh Country Rambles by Herbert W. Tomkins - Mersea Island
AbstractMarsh Country Rambles by Herbert W Tompkins published 1904

Chapter 16 : MERSEA ISLAND
pages 235 to 249

IT was said by them of old time that Mersea Island 'might be almost kept against the whole world.' Doubtless it was regarded as a secure retreat in time of warfare by Roman, Saxon, and Dane; and almost everything that we know of its early history is connected with some story of strife. The island is hilly, and infinitely more picturesque than Canvey or Foulness; it contains considerably over 5,000 acres, and, although much wood has been cut down, it still retains many trees. Its position between the mouths of the Blackwater and the Colne was noticed by those warlike navigators who, so many hundreds of years ago, descended upon our eastern coasts like the flies of Egypt for multitude. It had been noticed several centuries before by the Romans, who built the causeway known as the Strood, which connects the island with the Essex main, and, if tradition speaks truly, erected a temple in honour of Vesta near the spot now occupied by the Church of SS. Peter and Paul, in the village of West Mersea.

The Roman left behind him some traces of his occupation of Mersea Island; but history records little of his doings in the neighbourhood. About the year 1730 a tessellated pavement, wonderfully preserved, was discovered at West Mersea Hall, and further search has shown that many coffins in the churchyard rest upon a similar foundation. Moreover, only a few years ago, some excavations effected in a neighbouring field brought to light the remains of a circular wall, strongly buttressed; conjecture more or less ingenious has been advanced in regard to the true character of these ruins, but nothing, so far as I am aware, has been satisfactorily determined. Nor can it be proved that any barrow or tumulus on the island is of Roman origin.

Legend and chronicle and history offer their assistance more freely when we come to the Danes. One story I will repeat here because it is connected with what I wrote when at St. Osyth. Among the Danes who infested Mersea Island and the surrounding waters were two twin brothers, both warrior chiefs. Their desires were similar, their ambitions one. One day early in the year 653 they sailed up St. Osyth Creek, destroyed the nunnery, and killed the saint. But this event led to a quarrel between the brothers; for Osyth had a very beautiful sister, whom they carried with them to Mersea Island when they returned. The brothers both desired this fair prisoner, and neither would yield his claim. So it came to pass that they drew their great swords and fought together long and desperately, until neither had strength to fight longer, and presently the two brothers died. Now, when the Danes saw that their twin chiefs were dead, they did much the same as others were wont to do in those days. They took the ship in which the brothers had so often sailed, and carried it to the top of a hill since called the Hoe, overlooking the Strood causeway. Then they took the two dead men, placed the sword of each in his hand, laid them in the hold of their vessel, and laid the beautiful sister of Osyth between the two. Then they piled an exceeding great heap of earth over the quick and the dead, and all three slept together in that strange grave. But, lo! at the time when a new moon looks upon the earth those warriors breathe again the breath of life and fight in the bowels of the high barrow even as they fought of old. You may hear the clash of their swords as they strive for the mastery, and may hear them curse one another. Now, while the brothers are striving the maid utters no sound; but the strife ceases as the moon wanes, and then the maid is heard to weep and mourn.

This story is worthy the attention of comparative mythologists; for, as often happens, the legend accords well enough with certain established data, and seems to have been elaborated to meet the requirements of narrators. The Danish leaders who attacked the nunnery of St. Osyth are believed to have been the notorious Inguar and Hubba, who were therefore the protagonists of this strange legend for as mere legend the details must certainly be regarded.

Hastings that able seaman whom Regner Lodbrog employed to train his son as a sea-rover, and from whom our Warren Hastings was probably descended sailed up the Thames with eighty ships in the reign of Alfred. This led to one of several engagements in which Alfred defeated the Danes, who, escaping through Essex, took possession of Mersea Island. The old chronicles are somewhat contradictory in their narratives at this juncture; but it seems certain that Alfred besieged the island awhile, having soon to abandon it in order to travel South, where matters had become still more desperate. The Danes on Mersea Island were presently joined by Hastings, who had failed in his effort to establish himself at Chester. Remaining in the island until Hastings was recovered from a wound, as the Saxon Chronicle relates, they eventually quitted it of their own accord, bearing their plunder overseas. Hastings withdrew to France, and was living there when Normandy was invaded by his countryman, Rollo the Dane.

I first saw Mersea Island from a small boat off Brightlingsea. The old man who rowed me across to Mersea Stone had a hard pull for his money; the mouth of the Colne was rough as heart could wish, and I think my friend was not sorry when he ran the boat's nose as far in as possible, close to the hospital ship, and carried me ashore on his shoulders. I landed near the edge of Fresh Marsh, on a beach of bright, firm sand, plentifully sprinkled with thrift. An islander was mending the keel of an upturned boat; he shouted a cheery 'Mornen, sir!' heard despite the uproar of the wind, as I hastened towards East Mersea, passing as I went fields of tares, peas, and corn. Before I reached the church I turned into a delightful copse; the wind dropped suddenly, and I passed nearly an hour in silent enjoyment of my surroundings, for I was journeying alone. The ground was carpeted with bluebells, primroses, and celandines. In a large hazel-bush I found a thrush's nest; the hen was sitting on three eggs, and allowed me to touch her before she deserted them with a whirr and a cry. Summer was almost come, and somewhere in the depths of the copse a nightingale was singing its approach with 'full-throated ease.' He was very wary, nor could I see him despite my efforts to draw near without noise. I afterwards learned that a nightingale's nest had been found in the copse, and hoped the young might be safely reared to sing in other sylvan shades, other island coppice or dingle, 'where only man is vile.' At East Mersea, a fortune chanced, I fell in with one of the Mussets of Mersea Island a family known to have lived there for more than 500 years. He told me that he had been engaged in the oyster trade all his life, and from his dictation I wrote a few sentences which may prove of interest. Persons already versed in the subject may compare the islander's experience with their own.

The oyster, I was told, spawns in April, May, and part of June, according to the character of the spring.* The spawn is much affected by temperature, almost from the first; a temperature of 60 or 70 degrees is all in its favour, but 'twelve or thirteen degrees of chill' is greatly to its detriment. When weak, it is at the mercy of the myriad young crabs that inhabit estuary bottoms; but should the temperature rise as high as, say, 75 degrees, the process of 'covering' is greatly assisted indeed, the oyster can cover itself in twenty-four hours. The spat, which has hitherto floated freely, becomes whitish in colour, drops to the bottom, and growth is henceforth comparatively rapid. Oysters, added my informer, maybe sold until May 12, but in the year 1903 they came late into the market.

* I have since learned that the spawning season in Europe generally extends into August, and even September.

Nowadays oysters are preferred of a large size; a longer time is therefore necessary for their culture, and their cost is proportionately increased. The recent 'scare' has added much to the troubles of the oystermen of the Colne Estuary, as, indeed, elsewhere: such oysters as once fetched £14 per bushel can be now bought for 50s. Young ' brood' once gathered to sell at 45. 6d. per 100, now fetch but 1s. The young oyster is called 'spat' until it is two years old, when it becomes 'brood.' The spat, while young, has to be taken off the shell, parted, and relaid. The veteran representative of the Mussets spoke despondingly of the present, but anticipated a time when the scare will have blown over and oyster-culture be again a flourishing industry.

To Mr. Beckett's 'Romantic Essex' I am indebted for some further details touching the oyster-trade. He had seen the oyster-smacks moored below West Mersea, and at four o'clock one morning he rose to join the crew of the Vesta, bound for the open sea and a morning's dredging. He describes the drag-nets of iron and ox-hide, drawn by the drifting boats in search of cultch, which Mr. Beckett describes as ' oyster-shells, stones, and miscellaneous rubbish, to which the spat or spawn of the oyster attaches itself.' This cultch is carefully sorted, the rubbish thrown overboard, and the young oysters, as Musset put it, 'parted and relaid.' At the same time the crew are careful to destroy those natural enemies of the oyster that come in their way, such as starfish, which often swallow them whole, whelk-tingle, and dog-whelk. The trade is of immemorial antiquity; there is every evidence that the Romans pursued it extensively, for wherever their works are uncovered at least, in England there the oyster's shell is invariably found. It was thus at West Mersea when the pavement was discovered; it was thus on many occasions at Colchester. Classical readers need hardly be reminded that oysters are mentioned by Pliny, Horace, Catullus, Virgil, and other Roman writers, and that early in the seventh century, if not before, the Romans practised oyster - culture of a kind in Lake Avernus.

East Mersea village consists, so far as I observed, of a few cottages, an inn, and the Church of St. Edmund, where the author of 'Mehalah' was sometime Rector. The church is partly covered by 'the ivy green, that creepeth o'er ruins old'; its time-worn, embattled stone tower is a prominent object from the sea; it stands about half a mile from the island coast. The land rises gradually towards the church; from the fields near by I overlooked the sparkling waters of Brightlingsea Reach and the saltings that fringe St, Osyth Marsh. Those waters were dotted with small yachts and many fishing-boats. I asked a man what fish were mostly taken thereabouts. 'Sir' said he, 'I don't just know much about it now; but years back as many as thirty boats at a time would be fishing off the island. They came from lots of places Greenwich, Faversham, Whitstable, Wyvenhoe, and elsewhere and very often caught great numbers of guard-fish ( gar fish ?) with nets. They caught plenty of bass, too, and lots of large soles; some of the best soles were taken round to the Isle of Wight.' Close to the church I passed some cottages truly beautiful for situation; they were almost embowered in fruit-trees, then in full bloom ; their back-windows looked out across Pyfleet [Pyefleet] Channel and the hilly parish of Peldon.The laughter of children and some snatches from an admirably touched pianoforte floated towards me from an open doorway.

On Mersea Island, although its appearance speaks of moderate prosperity, you may meet few persons during a ramble of several miles. At West Mersea, indeed, there are many small cottages recently built, and some appearance of a more considerable population ; but my friend Musset doubted if there were more than 1,500 people on the entire island. Some have left in search of larger life and more varied experience in London; many such, I am sorry to relate, have not improved their position in life by so doing. Men from Mersea Island have gone to London and shared the fate of those recently mentioned by Mr. Percy Alden. At the docks Mr. Alden met with a man fresh from an Essex farm, for whom, and for his wife and children, the farmer could no longer provide employment. In Essex the man's wife had been skilled in the work of a dairy; in London she added to her husband's small and fluctuating earnings by washing and charing. At Limehouse, subsequently, Mr. Alden found the family submerged indeed. One child had died; both parents had taken to drink, and hopeless poverty had followed fast on the heels of drunkenness. The case is typical of hundreds of others. And Essex, as Lord Winchelsea said a few years ago, is a county in which 100,000 acres might be farmed for the asking. Something should be attempted in this direction, and land and people alike be thereby reclaimed.

The extreme south of Mersea Island, which faces Virley Channel, is fringed with willows between the saltings and the higher land. Local trade in oysters employs many persons in the neighbourhood of the Victory Inn ; the visitor may chance to remember the boast of Sir Aston Cokayne:

'The old luxurious Romans vaunts did make
Of gustful oysters took in Lucrine Lake;
Your Essex better hath, and such perchance
As tempted Caesar first to pass from France.'

It would be interesting to know upon what grounds Cokayne supposed that Caesar could have been tempted hither by the presence of oysters. We have heard that the Romans coveted the tin of the Cassiterides, but that is another matter. Caesar himself (' De Bello Gallico Comment.,' iv.) tells us that he resolved to pass over into Britain because its inhabitants had continually assisted the Gauls during his campaigns, and because he thought it advisable to acquaint himself with our coasts and harbours a sufficiently plausible explanation.

The Victory affords a welcome retreat in rough weather to ramblers less amphibious than the men of Mersea less strong to withstand those gales which blow across from Bradwell Quay or Shingle Head Point, ruffling the mouth of Virley Channel and harassing the sailing craft upon those choppy seas that eddy and swirl around the island coast. But the wind was soft and the sky almost cloudless as I stood before the inn to take my bearings. To the south-east, three miles away, I saw through the thin haze a small, oblong, barn-like structure all that remains of the ancient Chapel of St. Peter's on-the-Wall. To the right, the hill before me was crowned by Tollesbury village and church; to the right, again, looking across the Ray, where Mehalah lived, I saw 'the decent church that tops the neighbouring hill ' of Peldon; a wider view, or more diversified scene, is hardly to be found in the Marsh-Country. At the ebb-tide barges with big brown sails creep slowly down the Blackwater. At sunset those sails gleam red as blood; when the mouth of the Blackwater is veiled by mist they loom indistinct and shadowy as ships on a canvas by Whistler. On mornings of clear shining after rain, when a breeze has sprung up afresh and waves are maned with spray, and when boats of every rig and cut are getting under way or running for Mersea Island or Bradwell Quay or Maldon Hythe, the scene will recall the genius of Wyllie, that great painter of seascape and riverside scenery.

From West Mersea the island slopes gradually to the saltings and the Strood causeway. When I reached the Strood an unusually high tide had entirely flooded the causeway; I had to choose whether I would wade across or wait until the waters had subsided. I decided to wait, and picked my way here and there along the margin of the saltings, the home of several plants peculiar to similar localities, and which I named in a former chapter the thrift, sea-lavender, sea-aster, and glasswort four littoral plants mention by Mr. Baring-Gould as characteristic of the flora of the neighbourhood. The thrift (Statice Armeria) with its linear, fleshy leaves, leafless flower-stalks, and round heads of rose-coloured flowers, grows in enormous quantities on the Essex marshes immediately adjacent to the sea. Less generally known, but common in certain localities, the sea-lavender (S. limonium), has also a leafless flower-stalk, and where growing profusely it imparts a purplish hue to the marsh, very noticeable at a distance. When the sea-lavender flowers, you will find the sea-aster (Aster tripolium) flowering, too; sometimes called the sea-starwort, it is the only wild aster known in Great Britain, and is found exclusively on the saltmarshes and on cliffsides, where its flower-heads - the inner florets yellow, the outer purple - are conspicuous objects. On the Essex marshes I have seen immense numbers of this plant growing closely together by creek sides, in which localities they are often covered in mud and hardly discernible. Lastly, the common jointed glasswort (Salicornia herbacea) a mere bundle of joints, shoots up green and succulent in the spring, and bears its pale-green flowers far into the autumn. These, and many species of flowering grass, sedge, and rush, comprise a distinctive portion of the flora of the salt marshes.

Read More
Chapter 14 - in the Country of Mehalah

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AuthorHerbert W. Tomkins
Published1904
SourceMersea Museum
IDHTK_016