Essex Oyster Distribution. 177 



fisheries between Swales Spitt and King's Ferry, whose Charters 

 date 14th and 15th centuries. Adjoining (mid- Swale), the once 

 celebrated Milton native beds, of repute since the time of King 

 John. Eastwards, the Faversham grounds these even going 

 back to King Stephen, 12th century. Thus doubtless the 

 Swale throughout was here and there the natural habitat of 

 Ostrea edulis, the laying of brood and cultivation on restricted 

 beds being subsequent in time. 



What the natural oyster beds of the Medway may have 

 been in early times we have no explicit data at hand to go by. 



On the Essex side of the Thames, some of the oldest oyster- 

 men recall in mind when self-raised native oysters were 

 regularly taken in fair numbers inside the old Leigh-Middle, 

 and on the Marshend side (Caiivey) of the Channel. Within 

 the Hadleigh Ray (during Mr. Plumb's lifetime), and before 

 the latter was cultivated and worked as it now is, several old 

 Leighmen managed to eke out a living by picking up at times 

 four to five pecks of very saleable native oysters, from small 

 self -reared brood, the whereabouts of which the men themselves 

 only knew. Outside the extremity of the old Southend Pier 

 there were within memory plenty of shells and live natives to 

 be got. Now all this ground has silted. Again, from the 

 Knock Buoy to almost as far as the Blacktail Swin, according 

 to Baxter, were long strips of oyster shells, his inference being 

 that these were the remains of former worked-out beds. 



There are no records whatsoever of oysters living or 

 thriving shorewards beyond the Blacktail Swin say to 

 Whitaker Spit the clean sands on the coast there being 

 inimical to them. There are those among the fishermen who 

 also well remember native oyster patches in the Barrow 

 Deep and around the Goldmer Gat and the Sunkend. At 

 this latter spot, about 1860-70, the late Greo. Baxter's crews of 

 his oyster craft are credited for clearing out a small bed 

 accidentally hit upon there. Another find of self-reared oysters 

 was inside of the Stone-Banks, betwixt the Naze and Harwich. 



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