From hence the great road passed up to Leytonstone, a place by some
known now as much by the
Sign of the "Green Man," formerly a lodge
upon the edge of the forest; and crossing by Wanstead House,
formerly the dwelling of Sir Josiah Child, now of his son the Lord
Castlemain (of which hereafter), went over the same river which we
now pass at Ilford; and passing that part of the great forest which
we now call Hainault Forest, came into that which is now the great
road, a little on this side the Whalebone, a place on the road so
called because the rib-bone of a great whale, which was taken in
the River Thames the same year that Oliver Cromwell died, 1658, was
fixed there for a monument of that monstrous creature, it being at
first about eight-and-twenty feet long.
According to my first intention of effectually viewing the sea-
coast of these three counties, I went from Stratford to Barking, a
large market-town, but chiefly inhabited by fishermen, whose smacks
ride in the Thames, at the mouth of their river, from whence their
fish is sent up to London to the market at Billingsgate by small
boats, of which I shall speak by itself in my description of
London.
One thing I cannot omit in the mention of these Barking fisher-
smacks, viz., that one of those fishermen, a very substantial and
experienced man, convinced me that all the pretences to bringing
fish alive to London market from the North Seas, and other remote
places on the coast of Great Britain, by the new-built sloops
called fish-pools, have not been able to do anything but what their
fishing-smacks are able on the same occasion to perform. These
fishing-smacks are very useful vessels to the public upon many
occasions; as particularly, in time of war they are used as press-
smacks, running to all the northern and western coasts to pick up
seamen to man the navy, when any expedition is at hand that
requires a sudden equipment; at other times, being excellent
sailors, they are tenders to particular men of war; and on an
expedition they have been made use of as machines for the blowing
up of fortified ports and havens; as at Calais, St. Malo, and other
places.
This parish of Barking is very large, and by the improvement of
lands taken in out of the Thames, and out of the river which runs
by the town, the tithes, as the townsmen assured me, are worth
above 600 pounds per annum, including, small tithes. Note.--This
parish has two or three chapels of ease, viz., one at Ilford, and
one on the side of Hainault Forest, called New Chapel.
Sir Thomas Fanshaw, of an ancient Roman Catholic family, has a very
good estate in this parish. A little beyond the town, on the road
to Dagenham, stood a great house, ancient, and now almost fallen
down, where tradition says the Gunpowder Treason Plot was at first
contrived, and that all the first consultations about it were held
there.
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