NOTES — ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 27 



the Conquest. In a history of Essex, published a hundred and twenty years ago, 

 the name is spelt four times with a ' vv.' The Saxon derivation of Foulness is 

 Fugel, a fowl, and nsese, a promgintory. In very early English the word was 

 written Fouhnesse, Foulsnesse, the first ' s ' conclusively proving its meaning. 

 The farm of which the earliest mention is made is Nazewick, probably the Wick 

 of Fowlness, as then being nearest the Cape. There is, of course, another and 

 a far-fetched derivation of ' ness ' or ' naze,' namely, nassa, a noose or snare ; in 

 support of which theory there is undoubted evidence of a former decoy pond in 

 the centre of the island, close to which the discovery of Roman remains was 

 made. ' Sir Guy de Rochford dyed in 1274, and besides the Manors of Rochford, 

 Burden, and Elsenham, held a hundred and twenty acres of marsh in Foulnes, 

 called Nassewyk.' His nephew, John de Rochford, dying in 1309, besides Naze- 

 wick, held the Marsh of Eastwodwick, afterwards held by Rubirt de Rochford. 

 William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton, possessed Middlewyk Marsh in 1343, 

 through whose successois, William and Humfrey de Bohun, the estate went to 

 Alianor, wife of Thomas of Woodstock, on whose tragic death it came to the 

 Crown. King Henry VI. granted these lands to Thomas Earl Ormond, from 

 whom they passed to the families of Bullen, Stafford, and Rich, and to the female 

 heirs of the Earl of Warwick, one of which brought it to the Right Honble. 

 Daniel, Earl of Nottingham. Thence it passed to the Earl of Winchilsea and 

 Nottingham. ' In the steward's account of Robert, Earl of Warwick, in 1651, the 

 quit rents of the Manor of Foulness amounted to £9, 17s. lod. Fowlness Hall, 

 that is. New Hall and Old Hall, were £1^0 per annum.' The old church of 

 Foulness was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, St. Thomas the Martyr, and All 

 Saints, and is described as a wooden fabric, about the middle of the island, of one 

 pace forty-seven feet long and twenty broad. At first called chapel institutive, 

 it was presented to by the Lady Joane de Bohun in 1386, and from that time 

 by lords of the manors ; but, being slenderly provided for, and the curate but little 

 resident, a chantry was founded in 1408 by the same Joane, Countess of Here- 

 ford, in whom, with the archbishop and other lords of the manor, the right of 

 patronage was vested. After the dissolution of chantries in 1547, this chapel was 

 erected into a rectory in 1554, the advowson being then the property of Richard 

 Lord Rich. ' Robert, Earl of Warwick, at the time of his decease, March 24, 

 i6ig, held the Marior of Fowlenes and divers lands, etc., called Nasewick, 

 Arundell Marsh, New Wicke, East Wicke, South Wicke, Muncken Barn, and 

 two marshes, in .Packleshame and Wakering, parcel of the Manor of Fowlenes — 

 otherwise called Isle of Fowlenes.' ' In creeks round these islands are fed small 

 ojsters called Wall-fleet oysters.' The remains of old counter walls, much more 

 distinctly marktd on the island of Wallasea, are still to be seen on the higher 

 grounds of Fowlness, showing that the island was reclaimed at different periods. 

 In early modern English, fowl, a bird, was also spelt ' foul ' and 'foule,' and in 

 middle English, ' foule,' ' fowel,' etc."' 



Dagenham and Dagnams. — In a short paper on "The Geology of the 

 District around Dagenham Breach, Essex " (ESSEX Nat., vol. iv., p. 142, Septem- 

 ber, 1892), I quoted from a well-section given by Mr. Whitaker (" Geol. Lond.," 

 vol. ii., p. 18), the locality of which is theie stated to be " Dagenhall Hall, " as 

 showing the remarkable thickness of the London Clay beneath the River Drift 

 at that spot, which I then supposed to be the Hall about half a mile north of the 

 Aillage of Dagenham. Mr. Whitaker, who appears to have obtained the details 

 of the well-section from the MSS. of Dr. J. Mitchell, held this view of the 



