Appear to be
hard as a stone without and soft as clay in the middle; whereas
others that have lain a due time shall be thorough stone to the
centre, and as exceeding hard within as without. The same spring
is said to turn wood into iron. But this I take to be no more or
less than the quality, which, as I mentioned of the shore at the
Naze, is found to be in much of the stone all along this shore,
viz., of the copperas kind; and it is certain that the copperas
stone (so called) is found in all that cliff, and even where the
water of this spring has run; and I presume that those who call the
hardened pieces of wood, which they take out of this well by the
name of iron, never tried the quality of it with the fire or
hammer; if they had, perhaps they would have given some other
account of it.
On the promontory of land which they call Beacon Hill and which
lies beyond or behind the town towards the sea, there is a
lighthouse to give the ships directions in their sailing by as well
as their coming into the harbour in the night. I shall take notice
of these again all together when I come to speak of the Society of
Trinity House, as they are called, by whom they are all directed
upon this coast.
This town was erected into a marquisate in honour of the truly
glorious family of Schomberg, the eldest son of Duke Schomberg, who
landed with King William, being styled Marquis of Harwich; but that
family (in England, at least) being extinct the title dies also.
Harwich is a town of hurry and business, not much of gaiety and
pleasure; yet the inhabitants seem warm in their nests, and some of
them are very wealthy. There are not many (if any) gentlemen or
families of note either in the town or very near it. They send two
members to Parliament; the present are Sir Peter Parker and
Humphrey Parsons, Esq.
And now being at the extremity of the county of Essex, of which I
have given you some view as to that side next the sea only, I shall
break off this part of my letter by telling you that I will take
the towns which lie more towards the centre of the county, in my
return by the north and west part only, that I may give you a few
hints of some towns which were near me in my route this way, and of
which being so well known there is but little to say.
On the road from London to Colchester, before I came into it at
Witham, lie four good market towns at equal distance from one
another, namely, Romford, noted for two markets, viz., one for
calves and hogs, the other for corn and other provisions, most, if
not all, bought up for London market. At the farther end of the
town, in the middle of a stately park, stood Guldy Hall, vulgarly
Giddy Hall, an ancient seat of one Coke, sometime Lord Mayor of
London, but forfeited on some occasion to the Crown. It is since
pulled down to the ground, and there now stands a noble stately
fabric or mansion house, built upon the spot by Sir John Eyles, a
wealthy merchant of London, and chosen Sub-Governor of the South
Sea Company immediately after the ruin of the former Sub-Governor
and Directors, whose overthrow makes the history of these times
famous.
Brentwood and Ingatestone, and even Chelmsford itself, have very
little to be said of them, but that they are large thoroughfare
towns, full of good inns, and chiefly maintained by the excessive
multitude of carriers and passengers which are constantly passing
this way to London with droves of cattle, provisions, and
manufactures for London.
The last of these towns is indeed the county town, where the county
gaol is kept, and where the assizes are very often held; it stands
on the conflux of two rivers--the Chelmer, whence the town is
called, and the Cann.
At Lees, or Lee's Priory, as some call it, is to be seen an ancient
house in the middle of a beautiful park, formerly the seat of the
late Duke of Manchester, but since the death of the duke it is sold
to the Duchess Dowager of Buckinghamshire, the present Duke of
Manchester retiring to his ancient family seat at Kimbolton in
Huntingdonshire, it being a much finer residence. His grace is
lately married to a daughter of the Duke of Montagu by a branch of
the house of Marlborough.
Four market towns fill up the rest of this part of the country--
Dunmow, Braintree, Thaxted, and Coggeshall--all noted for the
manufacture of bays, as above, and for very little else, except I
shall make the ladies laugh at the famous old story of the Flitch
of Bacon at Dunmow, which is this:
One Robert Fitzwalter, a powerful baron in this county in the time
of Henry III., on some merry occasion, which is not preserved in
the rest of the story, instituted a custom in the priory here:
That whatever married man did not repent of his being married, or
quarrel or differ and dispute with his wife within a year and a day
after his marriage, and would swear to the truth of it, kneeling
upon two hard pointed stones in the churchyard, which stones he
caused to be set up in the Priory churchyard for that purpose, the
prior and convent, and as many of the town as would, to be present,
such person should have a flitch of bacon.
I do not remember to have read that any one ever came to demand it;
nor do the people of the place pretend to say, of their own
knowledge, that they remember any that did so.
