river. Merchants from the north had nowhere in the whole course of their journey a piece of country more difficult than this great swamp beyond the ford of Thorney. They splashed and floundered through it, over ankles, over knees, up to the middle, up to the neck, in mud and muddy water. The pack horses sank deep down with their loads." There is no doubt that this was the ford where the Roman soldiers failed to overtake the Britons, mentioned in the account by Dion Cassius of the invasion under Plautius, A.D. 43.2 For an Army to try and pass to such a ford, with two miles of treacherous mud flat on the south side and half a mile on the other, would be only courting disaster. Caesar could not have referred to it when writing that the Thames was passable on foot only at one place, meaning, of course, for his army of 14,000 men, with all its train.3 “He knew the river, too, for he had in his camp Mandubratius, who had ruled in Essex, and must have been acquainted with it, to say nothing of other refugees and deserters.""

Chelsea Reach.-Maitland, in his "History of London," places Caesar's passage of the Thames at Chelsea.' There his army would also have met with disaster if in the face of the Britons he had attempted to cross the marshes which then bordered the river on both the Battersea and Chelsea sides. This, as above stated, was the fate which befell some soldiers of Aulus Plautius a century later when pursuing the Britons across the Surrey marsh a little lower down by the Thornea ford. All that Maitland seems to have done in 1732 in support of his theory was to take a boat to sound the river for shallow places, and thirty yards west of Chelsea College found the "channel N.E. to S.W. was not more than 4 feet 7 inches deep." !! He made no quest for the remains of the stakes which Caesar says lined both the bed and bank of the Thames, which have in great numbers been so found, guarding the great ford of the river at Brentford, now to be described.

1 "South London," Besant.

2 See chap. vii, infra, on Claudius Caesar, etc.

3 A horse ferry supplanted the Westminster ford, of which its adjunct Horse-ferry lane alone survives. So also below Old England at Brentford (see Rocques' Survey) but now limited to passengers. A grant of this ferry was made by Henry VIII to John Hale. See Inhabitants of Old Brentford v. Hale, Star Chamber proceedings, vi, p. 60. It seems to have been called also The King's ferry, Patent Rolls, 7 Chas. I, 28 Nov.

4 16
"Origines Celticae."

"Hist. of London," Maitland, i, 8.

CHAPTER V

THE GREAT FORD OF THE THAMES

EARLIEST MENTION-OLD ENGLAND-CAESAR'S PASSAGE-POSITION OF STAKES

Earliest Mention.

THE

REMOVAL OF STUMPS

HE first mention of the ford of the Thames at Brentford is in the AngloSaxon Chronicle for the year 1016, which records that Edmund (Ironsides) the King gathered his forces and went all north of the Thames to London and relieved the citizens, and then two days after went over at Brentford, and there fought against the (Danish) Army and put it to flight. Another account, by William of Malmesbury, circa 1130, in his "History of the Kings of England," when referring to this rout of the Danes twice mentions the ford-transito vado quod dicitur Brentford, and, prae occupatoque vado quod superias nominavi Brentford. Later on Bishop Gibson in his edition of Camden's "Britannia," 1695, states that "the Thames was in ancient times easily forded at Brentford, and is so still, there being now at low ebb not above three feet of water."

There was but little tidal scour in those early days, for irregular banks, shoals, weeds, reeds and fallen trees, etc., coupled with the lateral flow over miles of swamps, would all tend to impede the flow in the river proper. Constant dredging in recent years has taken place upon the gravel shingle in the Syon reach of the river, to deepen the Brentford channel for navigation, and from the above causes it can be imagined that 2,000 years ago the river here was much shallower than at present, and therefore easily fordable at low tide. The late Mr. Rough, a Conservancy Inspector, told the writer in 1905 that the river bed was much flatter prior to the dredging operations. All the accessories of a ford convenient for military purposes were to be found here. On the Surrey side a wide and level approach over a firm and low lying bank (B.M. 13 feet) led down to a shallow river of no great width flowing over a broad bed of gravel. In ancient days the ford was reached from Richmond Hill by a trackway which survived in an "old lane or footpath called Love Lane, or Kew Foot Road, and which led from Richmond Green to the ferry across the river between Kew and Brentford. It had been

of little service after the building of Kew Bridge in 1757 when the present road became used, and so was it closed by an Act of Parliament in 1785." The passage across would generally be made by travellers at low water, and it probably lay up stream, a little above the line of route of the present ferry. The old ford was a double one, as an arm of the Brent had afterwards to be crossed before ascending the ridge (B.M. 25) which lies on a tongue of land between the Brent and a small brook from Little Ealing.

2

Old England.-On the intervening triangle of land, forming the delta of the Brent lay the town meadow, happily named and still known as "Old England," and so described on the Ordnance sheets. Its old appearance has now, alas, gone for ever, nearly all lost in docks, and buried beneath railway embankments. However, the view of the bank of the Thames here, immediately below and adjoining the grounds of Syon Park, will give some idea of the "Old England" of former days. It is now impossible to ascertain what further relics of ancient strife for the passage of the ford remain buried beneath the soil of "Old England"; but the late Thomas Layton, F.S.A., of Brentford, in the "sixties," during the excavations for the docks, fortunately obtained many interesting antiquities of which he kindly supplied me with this list. Stone celts polished 3 to 7 inches, stone implements of various sizes with holes in centre, stone chisels mostly in flint 1 to 3 and 3 to 5 inches. Bronze and iron swords 2 feet, more or less, in length, and iron spear heads. Many Roman bronze coins and some of silver. Numerous portions of Roman pottery ware, also some cinerary urns: Large quantities of human skulls and bones, considered to be the remains of those who fell in the battle with the Danes, A.D. 1016, but query, rather in that of 1642, between the troops of Charles I and the Parliament. Near the main road above the river, horse bits, spurs, a bronze celt, a Roman mortarium, and blocks of chalk, the latter perhaps used in constructing the bed of the western road. It is certain that at least one hundred really fine specimens have been discovered here, and may be seen in the Brentford Museum. During the recent rebuilding of Kew Bridge, a mile from the ford lower down the stream, a fine specimen of a bronze celt with a portion of the oak haft remaining was dredged up. It was presented to

1 "The Royal Residences of Kew," W. L. Rutton, F.S.A., in Home Counties Mag., April, 1905.

2 Before it was canalized the southern arm of the Brent entered the Thames just below the boat in the view here given. This arm divided the ancient township of West Brentford in the parish of Hanwell, from that of Isleworth.

* In June, 1904, a fine specimen of a bronze spear head was dredged up in the Syon reach, and doubtless from time to time other finds may be made. It would be well if the Middlesex County Council, having the necessary powers, were to invite gifts of such things and organize a County Museum. Ancient articles of a known class lose much of their interest when removed out of the county or district in which they were discovered.