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, i 369 47
