THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



manors is accounted for by its coming disappearance from the live stock 

 of the farm. Where, as in parts of Australia, in Malta, and elsewhere, it 

 is the only substitute for the cow, it is still indispensable. 



The reason for dwelling at some length on the consumption and 

 making of cheese is that it bears on a great feature of the Domesday 

 survey of Essex, a feature which has hitherto, I believe, entirely escaped 

 notice. It will be found that the formula ' pasture for x sheep ' occurs 

 on a number of manors, and a brief examination will show that these 

 manors are on the coast. Closer investigation reveals the fact that this 

 ' pasture ' corresponds with the famous Essex marshes, and that where 

 these are most extensive, the number of sheep for which the Survey 

 records ' pasture ' is largest. The carrying capacity of the coast marshes 

 appears to amount in all, in Domesday, to over 18,000 sheep, a total 

 which must of necessity be a rough one, not only because the figures are 

 usually round numbers, but also because the ' hundred,' for sheep, was 

 doubtless the ' long hundred ' of six score. East and west of Mersea 

 Island the marshes of Langenhoe at the mouth of the Colne could feed 

 600 sheep, and those of Tollesbury, at the mouth of the Blackwater, at 

 least 700. In Dengie Hundred, to the south, where the marshes widen 

 towards the Crouch, those of Bradwell, with its long coast line, could 

 feed 650, of Tillingham 400, of Dengey 360, of Southminster 1,300, 

 and of Burnham 900. But most interesting of all perhaps, as we shall 

 see, were those in the Hundreds of Chafford, Barstable and Rochford, 

 along the northern bank of the Thames. 1 



For the study of these Hundreds and their marshes reveals a system 

 which is not found in other parts of the county. The inland manors 

 recorded as possessing ' pasture for sheep,' outside these Hundreds, are 

 virtually restricted to Terling, Butsbury, one of the Notleys, Margaret- 

 ting (?), and one of the Hanningfields, each of which is credited with 

 * pasture for i oo sheep,' to which we may possibly add Weeley and 

 Bocking. But within those Hundreds Childerditch, Great Warley, 

 Little Warley, an Ockendon, Burstead, Ramsden, Thorndon, Horndon- 

 on-the-Hill, West Lee, Laindon, Langdon, Basildon, North Benfleet, 

 Thundersley and Wheatley-in-Rayleigh all had ' pasture for sheep,' and 

 the bulk of these were in Barstable. A glance at the ordnance map 

 will suggest the explanation of the curious fact that these manors enjoyed 

 feed in the marshes, though themselves inland. Canvey Island affords 

 the clue. Opposite is a map of the island and the marshes to its north 

 and west, drawn to show the parish boundaries as they formerly stood.* 

 It is over this mosaic that we look in the frontispiece to this volume. 



1 The ' pasture for sheep ' in the rich marshes fringing the northern bank is traced westward to the 

 block formed by the Tilburys, Chadwell, and the Thurrocks, which are credited respectively with 

 pasture for 650, zoo, and 780 sheep. Moreover, Higham, on the Kentish bank, opposite East Tilbury, 

 had ' pasture in Essex for 200 sheep ' (Domesday \. 9). 



* The most important point to observe is that these fragments of parishes belong to three Hundreds, 

 and that, consequently, the marshes in and about Canvey Island were never the common pasture of any 

 one Hundred. The detached portion of Prittlewell at the west end of the island should be specially 

 observed, for it lies some eight miles to the west of Prittlewell, which is in Rochford Hundred. On the 

 opposite side of Holehaven Creek, facing it, are portions, it will be seen, of Little Warley and Dunton, 



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