A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



Stour, which unite now in the harbour of Harwich. This harbour, 

 as seen on the map (plan III), has a considerable width, but it has only 

 one deep channel into it, close beside the end of Landguard Common. 

 The sea is shallow, and there were, if there arc not still, considerable 

 sand banks in front of the harbour, as may be seen on the map (plan III). 

 A plan (IV) of the port was made in 1686 by Capt. Grenvil Collins 

 and dedicated to Pepys. It is a well-known fact that the North Sea 

 has, even in historic times of no distant date, largely affected the eastern 



Flau IV.— -Cha«t of £«Ta4iiics to Ha»wich Harbour in 1686 



coast-line of Britain, and very especially portions of Suffolk. Along this 

 Ime of coast from the Deben to the Stour it has been advancing with some 

 rapidity, and in the course of nineteen centuries considerable alterations 

 in the disposition of land and water may have taken place, and so much 

 is this the case, that it is permissible to conjecture, that in the Roman period 

 a tract of salt marshes and sand banks stretched across the present opening 

 of Harwich Harbour, forming a lagoon something like Breydon, from 

 which the united waters of the Stour and Orwell poured themselves into the 

 sea by a passage running at the foot of high land called at its eastern end 



288 



