Contraband Traffic. 19 



dezvous of highwaymen, and report sayeth many a cask of 

 Geneva and brandy and packets of tobacco, &c., found their 

 way there by the connivance of the Leigh fishing community. 



John Loten, collector of customs at Leigh (circa 1786) 

 according to Benton,* was aware of some ten vessels of from 

 10 to 13 tons which, under guise of coasters and fishing 

 craft, carried on illicit traffic in the creeks seawards of this 

 station. A place of evil repute for the temporary deposition 

 of spirits was " Gantlebor," a solitary spot near the Y"antlet. 



James Baxter, sen., now a number of years deceased, told 

 one of his nephews that when an officer in the Leigh Custom 

 House, the beginning of the 19th century, he made seizures every 

 day in July, 1802. This clearly shews something more than 

 fishery supported a section of the Leigh men. 



There still lives at Leigh one hale, hearty, but very old 

 fisherman, who acknowledges that he used to go alone in a 

 small boat far down the estuary of the Thames (at times towards 

 France), where, after boarding foreign vessels, he returned 

 by stealth in the darkness to Leigh with his contraband. He 

 was strongly suspected and watched, but he managed never- 

 theless to elude the search officers, though, as report goes, it 

 was sometimes by a narrow shave. 



The Coastguard station, we learn, was introduced at Leigh 

 some 60 years ago or thereabouts. Their old watchhouse, a 

 square wooden erection, was only lately demolished, on the 

 formation of the Railway goods' station. 



Early aspects as Fishing Village. Originally some of the 

 fishers' dwellings on the beach must have been little better 

 than shanties ; for men now living remember some of the old 

 wooden houses, not only on the ground floor, but sunk in the 

 ground, so that two or three steps had to be descended to their 

 entrance, and they had no upper storeys. One by one they 

 disappeared a mere remnant of these low-roof dwellings 

 attesting their former prevalence and now many comfortable 

 fishers' cottages are on the hill away from the water-side. 



* Op. cit. Vol. II., p. 442. 



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