ON A RECENT SUBSIDENCE AT MUCKING, ESSEX. 247 



beneath it, the ancient inhabitants were evidently familiar with 

 the knowledge of practical geology necessary to prevent them 

 from wasting their time and labour in profitless excavations. 



Indeed, the number of deneholes known to exist in this district 

 suggests that it was one in which deneholes, or secret subterranean 

 storehouses, were specially advantageous or even necessary to 

 the residents within its borders in early times. And a glance at 

 the geological map seems to indicate why this was so. Proximity 

 to that great highway, the Thames, was once a matter of much 

 greater importance and advantage to the people of Kent and 

 Essex than can easily be realised now. But if we look at the 

 course of the river we may note that spots close to it, and yet 

 sufficiently high to be above the reach of floods, and con- 

 sequently suitable for settlements, are not very numerous. We 

 must remember, too, that in early times the marshes were not 

 easily traversed as they now are, inasmuch as they were not 

 enclosed by the banks which now exclude the water even at the 

 highest tides. But the district in question has places on it which 

 must always have been specially suited for settlement at Pur- 

 fleet, West Thurrock, Grays Thurrock, and East Tilbury, close 

 to the river, while Stanford-le-Hope and Mucking had a stream 

 allowing the passage of boats to and from the Thames. On the 

 other hand, the great drawback inherent in these advantages was 

 the special temptation offered by the district to piratical raiders 

 coming up the Thames, especially in times before and after the 

 Roman occupation, when there was no Count of the Saxon Shore 

 to keep pirates in check. Part of a piratical squadron might 

 land on the eastern side of the Essex promontory at Stanford-le- 

 Hope, the rest of the crews at Grays Thurrock or Purfleet,or at 

 some spot on the Mardyke. Gravesend, on the Kentish shore, 

 would be equally eligible as a site for dwellings, but its 

 inhabitants, on the landing of pirates, would not find themselves 

 liable to have their retreat inland cut off, as would the dwellers 

 on the Essex promontory opposite. Hence, probably, a special 

 demand for, and supply of, the secret storehouses known as dene- 

 holes, which might also during a raid serve as hiding places for 

 women and children, while the fighting- men drew the attention 

 of the invaders elsewhere. 1 



1 Those who fail to realise how mighty a terror pirates were but one thousand years ago 

 to dwellers on the banks of the Thames and other rivers, should read the Anglo-Saxon 

 Chronicle from the year 787 onwards, and remember that only the more important raids are 

 mentioned. 



