BRADING HARBOUR 35 



the country, the present state and probable future of 

 the land won from the sea at Brading is a matter of 

 some interest, omitting all considerations of the original 

 cost. We may concede at once that, from the pictur- 

 esque point of view, the reclaimed harbour is a great 

 improvement on the ancient mud-flats. It has added 

 to the Isle of Wight what seems a piece of Holland, 

 covered with green pasture and grazing cattle. This 

 area is as much withdrawn from the intrusion of man 

 as the old lagoon ; for as on the mud-flats there were 

 no roads, no rights-of-way, and no footpaths, so the 

 reclamation is a roadless district, secured absolutely 

 to the use of the occupiers, and incidentally to the 

 wild-fowl which swarm by its shallow pools and 

 drains. The broad embanked river runs straight 

 through the centre, and divides into two the level 

 which lies like a green sea between the ring of sur- 

 rounding hills and the harbour-bank. In this river, 

 the waters of the ancient reclamations higher up the 

 valley collect during high-water, when the pressure 

 from the sea automatically shuts the sluices, and pour 

 out during low-tide, when the pressure of the sea is 

 removed, through the iron gates, near which lie, with 

 the grooves still sound and sharply cut, parts of the 

 sluices made for Sir Hugh Myddelton of English 

 oak in the year 1621. The general shape of the 

 reclamation is an oval, with one of the smaller ends 

 facing the sea, and the other abutting on ancient dams 

 near Brading, two miles higher up the valley. The 

 whole of this has been converted into firm, dry land ; 



