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It had always
intrigued me, the story told by my father, of how my
grandfather, a barge owner at the time (circa 1870) would
take his craft, known as a "dumpy" barge, up
the river Mardyke, tie up at various farms, load up with
corn and fodder for the London horses and on the return
journey bring down street refuse from the City for use as
manure on the land. I had no
doubt of my father's sincerity in recounting the story
but knowing the location of the fen farms and the course
of the Mardyke, I could not quite bring myself to accept
it in its entirety. As far as Stifford Clays farms yes,
but beyond that, to such places as Chantry, Botany,
Hoblets, Cherry Orchard, Conways, and Lorkins farm, was
asking too much of the imagination, and yet somehow ...
I had been at Cherry Orchard farm
discussing our "dig" with the late Sir Francis
Whitmore, and in order to clarify a point, he suggested
that I should go down to sea "Young Wordley"
which I promptly did. "Young Wordley" proved to
be Mr. G.E.Wordley of Lorkins farm, a man in his sixties,
whose family had farmed in Orsett for many generations. I
introduced myself to him, explaining the purpose of my
visit, and although we did not altogether clear up the
matter which I was investigating, I spent a most
enjoyable hour listening to Mr Wordley's account of
various aspects of life in Orsett, his own experiences
and recollections of things bis father had told bim in
the past. Suddenly he said, "Your name sounded
familiar to me and I've just remembered why. My dad used
to tell me of a Mr. Bannister, who, in my grandfather's
time, loaded his barge with fodder at the farm here and
later ...", etc. etc .
My excitement took him aback! Here,
like a bolt from the blue, was complete verification of
my father's story - no prompting, no hesitation, word for
word as my father had told me, but from the other end, as
it were, of those long past voyages of nearly a century
ago .
Still the question rose in my mind,
how did a barge get to this
farm, which is almost on the Tilbury-Brentwood road, when
the Mardyke is a mile or more away across the fen?
Mr. Wordley's explanation was
simple. He showed me how all the farms, on and near the
fen, are connected by what had been wide shallow ditches
to the Mardyke, which was itself both wider and shallower
than at present. The narrow, shallow draught vessels
sailed up the river and were then poled along the ditches
right up to the farms.
These ditches, like the river
itself, are today merely deep cut drains and only a
memory passed down from father to son could bring alive
the fact that at one time they had been navigable
waterways.
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