THE ESSEX FIELD CLUH. 249 



\V;ilthams — it is said to flow a distance of five miles through the parish of Great 

 Walthain — between Broonifield and Springfield to Chelmsford. 



Here it receives the two important tributaries of the Cann and the Wid. The 

 former rises at High Easter and High Roding, and flows between Margaret 

 RoJing and Good Easter to Chignal St. James, a little below which it is joined 

 by the Roxwell Brook, which flows round Fingrith Hall and the High Woods. 

 The lalter flows from Doddiiighurst and Biackmore, Shenfield, and Herongate, 

 through Buttsbury, Margaretting, Widford, and AVrittle. It may be news to 

 some of the travellers on that great Essex highwav — the Colchester line of the 

 Great Eastern Railway — that the flood water thej^ so often see out from the 

 Mountnessing Brook, between Brentwood and Ingatestone stations, comes down 

 to Maldon to the same point as the river the}' cross just below Kelvedon station. 



P'our miles below Chelmsford this river receives on the left bank the New 

 Hall and Boreham Brook, and a little lower, at Little Baddow, it receives from 

 the other side the Sandon Brook, a considerable stream flowing from Stock and 

 the Hanningfields. The Ter runs from Felstead, within a mile, from the old 

 river and from Rumley Wood, Great Saling, within a mile of Pod's Brook, a 

 tributary of the Blackwater. through Little Leiglis, Great Leighs, and Terling, 

 (to which parish it gives its name), under the main line of railway at the 

 \'iaduct, near Crix Mill, through Hatfield Peverel, and falls into the Chelmer 

 about half-a-mile above Ulting Church. Between Hoe Mills and Beeleigh Mills 

 it receives a brook running from Little Baddow and Woodham Walter Common. 

 The tide flows up past Beeleigh Abbej^ to Beeleigh Mill. 



There has been and still is considerable confusion about the Blackwater and 

 Chelmer rivers during the last mile of their separate existence. As has been 

 already said, they interchange their waters at many points from a consider- 

 able distance above Beeleigh Mill, but their streams are distinct now, if not in 

 times past, and it is the Chelmer that flows under Fullbridge, although in the 

 six-inch Ordnance map this is called the Blackwater, and some years ago a convic- 

 tion of the justices was made upon an information for an offence committed here 

 upon the river Blackwater, but upon appeal this conviction was quashed on the 

 ground that the river wasn't there at all. Only last year the Maldon borough 

 authorities had the satisfaction of setting both the Board of Trade, the Woods 

 and Forests Office, and the Local Governmmt Board right in this important 

 particular, doubtless caused by the serious error in the Government survey. It 

 is Heybridge Creek, falling into the estuary iust east of the railway station, that 

 is the river Backwater. 



In the year 1765 a proposal was made to make the river Chelmer navigable 

 for 30-ton barges from Moulsham Bridge, Chelmsford, to IMaldon Bridge, and an 

 Act of Parliament was obtained to that end. In those da3's, however, company 

 floating was not so readily accomplished as now, and although the capital asked 

 for was but ;^l3,CCO, sufficient was not subscribed. The details of the survej', by 

 Thomas Yeoman, for this project will be found in the " History of Essex, by a 

 Gentleman," vol. i., pp. 84-102, and in the same volume, at p. 93, we read, " We 

 here give the survey and report, made by the encouragers of this navigation, as 

 a'so th.'ir plan, curiousl)' engraved on copper, and when we come to treat of 

 Maldon we shall then subjoin the survey plan, &c., given by several gentlemen 

 who strongly opposed it, lea\ing the reader, after a thorough inspection of the 

 whole, to form his own conjectures." I cannot learn that these plans were ever 

 published, and Yeoman's plan is only found in a few^ copies of the Histor)*. In 

 1762 the cost of land carriage " for coals and all other goods brought by waggons 

 from Maldom to Chelmsford " was 8s. per ton, and it was estimated that the water 

 carriage was to cost 2s., with a toll of 2s. 6d., in all 4s. 6d , a saving of 3s. on every 

 ton of goods so carried to Chelmsford, in addition to a considerable saving of time 

 in transit. It was also estimated that then (1762), "under all the disadvantages of 

 the late war," at least 6,oco tons of coal and 4,000 tons of other goods were im- 

 ported into Maldon for the use of Chelmsford. 



In the year 1793 (33rd Geoi-ge HI.) another Act of Parliament was passed 

 " for making and maintaining the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation." In 

 this Act the pro[)rietors' names are set forth, so in this instance, presumabl)-, the 



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