248 SALMON FISHING 



of the fish in those early times. It is significant 

 that among the first things the Barons made King 

 John relinquish were his salmon traps at the Tower. 

 An Act of Richard II. provided a close time for the 

 fish, by declaring 'that young salmons shall not be 

 taken nor destroyed by nets, nor by other engines at 

 mill-dams, from the midst of April till the nativity of 

 St. John the Baptist.' The Abbot of St. Peter's, 

 Westminster, claimed, and for centuries received, 

 tithe of all salmon caught within the jurisdiction of 

 the Lord Mayor that is, anywhere in the river 

 between the Yantlett Creek and the City Stone at 

 Staines. There were Acts dealing with Thames 

 salmon in the reigns of Edward IV., Henry VIII., 

 Elizabeth, Queen Anne, George I., and George II. 



" An entry in the churchwarden's book of Wands- 

 worth, under date 1580, is to the effect that *in this 

 somer the fysshers of Wandesworthe tooke between 

 Monday and Saturday seven score of salmons in the 

 same fishings to the great honour of God.' In the 

 next century Izaak Walton mentions the Thames 

 salmon as the best in the kingdom, and speaks of the 

 great plenty of samlets near Windsor. He records 

 his opinion that the salmon would return in much 

 greater numbers from the sea but for the neglect of 

 the wise old statutes against erecting traps in the 

 river. 



" In the sale of riverside lands salmon pools were 

 reserved as valuable properties so late as the end of 

 the eighteenth century; and there was a recognised 

 fishery at Temple, of which the records and some of 



