Tour Through The Eastern Counties Of England, 1722
By Daniel Defoe
I began my travels where I purpose to end them, viz., at the City
of London, and therefore my account of the city itself will come
last, that is to say, at the latter end of my southern progress;
and as in the course of this journey I shall have many occasions to
call it a circuit, if not a circle, so I chose to give it the title
of circuits in the plural, because I do not pretend to have
travelled it all in one journey, but in many, and some of them many
times over; the better to inform myself of everything I could find
worth taking notice of.
I hope it will appear that I am not the less, but the more capable
of giving a full account of things, by how much the more
deliberation I have taken in the view of them, and by how much the
oftener I have had opportunity to see them.
I set out the 3rd of April, 1722, going first eastward, and took
what I think I may very honestly call a circuit in the very letter
of it; for I went down by the coast of the Thames through the
Marshes or Hundreds on the south side of the county of Essex, till
I came to Malden, Colchester, and Harwich, thence continuing on the
coast of Suffolk to Yarmouth; thence round by the edge of the sea,
on the north and west side of Norfolk, to Lynn, Wisbech, and the
Wash; thence back again, on the north side of Suffolk and Essex, to
the west, ending it in Middlesex, near the place where I began it,
reserving the middle or centre of the several counties to some
little excursions, which I made by themselves.
Passing Bow Bridge, where the county of Essex begins, the first
observation I made was, that all the villages which may be called
the neighbourhood of the city of London on this, as well as on the
other sides thereof, which I shall speak to in their order; I say,
all those villages are increased in buildings to a strange degree,
within the compass of about twenty or thirty years past at the
most.
The village of Stratford, the first in this county from London, is
not only increased, but, I believe, more than doubled in that time;
every vacancy filled up with new houses, and two little towns or
hamlets, as they may be called, on the forest side of the town
entirely new, namely Maryland Point and the Gravel Pits, one facing
the road to Woodford and Epping, and the other facing the road to
Ilford; and as for the hither part, it is almost joined to Bow, in
spite of rivers, canals, marshy grounds, &c. Nor is this increase
of building the case only in this and all the other villages round
London; but the increase of the value and rent of the houses
formerly standing has, in that compass of years above-mentioned,
advanced to a very great degree, and I may venture to say at least
the fifth part; some think a third part, above what they were
before.
This is indeed most visible, speaking of Stratford in Essex; but it
is the same thing in proportion in other villages adjacent,
especially on the forest side; as at Low Leyton, Leytonstone,
Walthamstow, Woodford, Wanstead, and the towns of West Ham,
Plaistow, Upton, etc. In all which places, or near them (as the
inhabitants say), above a thousand new foundations have been
erected, besides old houses repaired, all since the Revolution; and
this is not to be forgotten too, that this increase is, generally
speaking, of handsome, large houses, from 20 pounds a year to 60
pounds, very few under 20 pounds a year; being chiefly for the
habitations of the richest citizens, such as either are able to
keep two houses, one in the country and one in the city; or for
such citizens as being rich, and having left off trade, live
altogether in these neighbouring villages, for the pleasure and
health of the latter part of their days.
The truth of this may at least appear, in that they tell me there
are no less than two hundred coaches kept by the inhabitants within
the circumference of these few villages named above, besides such
as are kept by accidental lodgers.
This increase of the inhabitants, and the cause of it, I shall
enlarge upon when I come to speak of the like in the counties of
Middlesex, Surrey, &c, where it is the same, only in a much greater
degree. But this I must take notice of here, that this increase
causes those villages to be much pleasanter and more sociable than
formerly, for now people go to them, not for retirement into the
country, but for good company; of which, that I may speak to the
ladies as well as other authors do, there are in these villages,
nay, in all, three or four excepted, excellent conversation, and a
great deal of it, and that without the mixture of assemblies,
gaming-houses, and public foundations of vice and debauchery; and
particularly I find none of those incentives kept up on this side
the country.
Mr. Camden, and his learned continuator, Bishop Gibson, have
ransacked this country for its antiquities, and have left little
unsearched; and as it is not my present design to say much of what
has been said already, I shall touch very lightly where two such
excellent antiquaries have gone before me; except it be to add what
may have been since discovered, which as to these parts is only
this: That there seems to be lately found out in the bottom of the
Marshes (generally called Hackney Marsh, and beginning near about
the place now called the Wick, between Old Ford and the said Wick),
the remains of a great stone causeway, which, as it is supposed,
was the highway, or great road from London into Essex, and the same
which goes now over the great bridge between Bow and Stratford.
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