SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



in a net, was opposite Twickenham meadow in the 

 year 18 18. 18 



Trout he describes as ' few in number but 

 celebrated for their huge size and the excel- 

 lence of their flavour,' and as being taken 

 from five to fifteen pounds weight ; while 

 pike and jack were numerous, and perch, 

 barbel, chub, eels, lampreys, flounders, roach, 

 dace, gudgeon, bleak, pope, ruff, and minnows 

 were abundant in all parts of the Thames 

 from Battersea Bridge upwards, and fine carp 

 and tench were taken in some places, and 

 smelts near London Bridge. Among a list of 

 fishing stations from below London Bridge to 

 Streatley in Berkshire, he mentions in Middle- 

 sex, the Wet Docks below London Bridge, 

 Brentford, Isleworth, Twickenham, Tedding- 

 ton, Hampton, Sunbury, Shepperton, Laleham, 

 and Staines. 18 " 



It will be observed that of the above 

 stations Brentford, Isleworth, Hampton, Shep- 

 perton, and Staines were in ancient days 

 fisheries attached to manors. The noted 

 Hampton station (at which both salmon, the 

 last of which was taken in 1814, and trout 

 were originally very plentiful, while even 

 sturgeon were occasionally caught the last in 

 1824) is mentioned in the Rambler in 1797 

 as ' the most famous of all barbel deeps,' and 

 Dr. H. Jepson, one of the founders of The 

 Thames Angling Preservation Society, is 

 stated in Ripley's History and Topography of 

 Hampton to have informed the author that he 

 had on several occasions caught over 90 Ib. 

 of barbel there before breakfast. Lam perns 

 and jack were also fairly plentiful at Hampton 

 thirty years ago. 



Hampton is also notable as being the place 

 where the Thames Angling Preservation 

 Society, to whose efforts and expenditure 

 Thames anglers are indebted for the preser- 

 vation of the fishery in the river up to 

 Staines, was established at a meeting held at 

 the Bell Inn on 17 March, 1838 more than 

 seventy years ago. 19 The promoters of the 

 movement were Mr. Henry Perkins of Han- 

 worth Park, Mr. C. C. Clarke, and Mr. Ed- 

 ward Jesse of Twickenham, Dr. Henry 

 Jepson and Mr. Richard Kerry of Hampton, 

 Mr. W. Whitbread of Eaton Square, and 



18 T. C. Hoffland, The British Angler's Manual, 

 or the Art of Angling in England, Scotland, Wales and 

 Ireland, with some account of the principal rivers, lakes, 

 and trout streams In the United Kingdom. (New ed. 

 revised and enlarged by Edward Jesse, 1848), 237-8. 

 Hoffland was also an artist of some celebrity. 



181 Ibid. 238, 248, 263, 265-70. 



19 The Blue Bk. of the Thames AngRng Preserva- 

 tion Soc. 1906, p. 5. 



Mr. David Crole of Strawberry Hill. Ori- 

 ginally formed for the protection of fish from 

 poachers with respect to which an applica- 

 tion was in the first instance made to the then 

 Lord Mayor (Sir John Cowan, bart.), who was 

 at that time one of the Thames conservators 20 

 the society eventually extended its opera- 

 tions to restocking the river, and has thus 

 provided thousands of anglers with twenty miles 

 of free water, which furnishes perhaps the 

 finest coarse fishing in England. Among the 

 consignments of fish placed in the river during 

 1905 were 300 trout, from 10 to 14 in. 

 at Weybridge ; I ton of roach, dace, bream, 

 and perch about and below Sunbury Lock ; 

 I2cwt. of roach, perch, chub and bream at 

 Chertsey ; and about I dozen bream, averaging 

 a Ib., with a few chub, perch and roach at 

 Walton. Among the patrons of the society 

 may be mentioned the late King Edward and 

 his Majesty King George. The Hon. Harry 

 Lawson, M.A., is the president and Mr. 

 Henry Whitmore Higgins the hon. secretary 

 and hon. treasurer. 



The Lea, which, as has been said, forms 

 the eastern boundary of Middlesex, rises at 

 Leagrave Marsh near Luton in Bedfordshire, 

 and flows east-south-east for 10 miles into 

 Hertfordshire and for 1 6 miles by Hertford 

 to Ware. Thence it flows for 4 miles south- 

 wards between Hertfordshire and Essex to 

 the Middlesex border at Waltham Cross, 

 whence its course is 8 miles south-east by Lea 

 Brooke, Old Ford, Bow and Bromley to the 

 Thames at Blackwall. 



Two manors on the banks of the Lea are 

 returned in Domesday as having several 

 fisheries Enfield (Enfelde) and Tottenham 

 (Toteham) and the river has never ceased 

 to be productive. The fishing above Totten- 

 ham at Edmonton and Enfield is referred to 

 by Izaak Walton, who, as he lived the greater 

 part of his life in London where he first 

 became a fisherman and where he wrote 

 The Compleat Angler, may be fairly claimed 

 as a Middlesex man. 21 Hoffland, in whose 

 time its course above Limehouse lay through 

 'a beautiful pastoral country adorned with 

 villages . . . through parks and meadows 

 containing countless herds of cattle and flocks 

 of sheep,' describes the Lea as second only 

 to the Thames in the opinion of London 

 anglers.* 1 The river between Stratford and 

 Lea Bridge was then rented and preserved 



10 Ibid. 



11 See the Walton Chronology in the Win- 

 chester edition of The Compleat Angler, by Mr. 

 George Dewar. 



M The British Angler's Manual, 275. 



269 



