Chapter VIII: Section IV

_The Effects on Lynn_, _and on its Harbour and Navigation_, _of the great accession of Fresh Waters in the reign of Henry_ III.

Let us now attend to the Ouse and its sister streams, in their now or modern course, by Denver, Downham, St. German’s, and Lynn. By the addition of so many large rivers to its former waters, Lynn might be expected to have its Haven, by degrees, both widened and deepened, so as to contribute materially to its future naval consequence, and commercial importance. Previously to this great accession of water, the bed or channel of the river, about St. German’s, has been represented as so very narrow, that in some places a man might throw himself over with a pikestaff; and in Lynn Haven it is said to have been but six poles, or about an hundred feet wide. But afterward, by the said accession of fresh waters, Lynn Haven and channel were made in time so wide and deep as to become famous for Navigation. {22}

Things appear to have continued pretty much in this favourable state, till sometime after the erection of the Sluices at Denver; which by preventing the tides from going further up into the country, as before, proved very prejudicial to the harbour and Navigation of Lynn; and the effects are felt, it seems, and much complained of to this day. The free admission of the tides, and the natural course of the freshes are said to have kept other rivers open and navigable; and this appears to have been the case with the Ouse itself, while it possessed those advantages, or till the adventurers erected the said sluices across its channel, which are thought to have proved so very prejudicial, not only to the navigation of Lynn, Cambridge, &c. but even to the draining of the Fen districts and Marshland.

Before the erection of those sluices, the tide is said to have gone up the rivers a very great way. Into the Ouse, and Grant, or Cam, it went, according to _Badeslade_, five miles above their junction, or 48 above Lynn; into the Larke, or Mildenhall river, eight miles above its month, or 42 above Lynn; into the lesser Ouse, or Brandon river, ten miles above its mouth, or 36 above Lynn; into the Wessey, or Stoke river, six miles above its mouth, or 24 above Lynn; and into the Nene, seven miles above its mouth, or 23 above Lynn. {24a}—These rivers are said to be then completely supplied with water from the sea, in the driest seasons, to serve for inland navigation.—The Nene, to Well, Marsh, and Peterborough, &c. with vessels of 15 tuns in the driest times: the Ouse, with vessels of 40 tuns, 36 miles, at least, from Lynn, in ordinary neap tides; and to Huntingdon, St. Neots, Bedford, and even as far as 90 miles from Lynn, with vessels of 15 tuns. The tides then raised the waters at Salters Lode 12 feet above low-water mark. These waters in their return scoured the channel, and kept it clear and deep. This seems to have been the case before the erection of the sluices; but whether it would have continued so to this time, may, perhaps, be doubted. Badeslade and Kinderly seem to have entertained different and opposite opinions on the subject; as the reader may see by consulting their respective publications.

In a course of time, Lynn Haven is said to wear from 6 or 8 to 40 poles wide; which seems not improbable, considering the situation of it, and the accession of so many large rivers. In Badeslade’s time, as he says, {24b} it was from 50 to 60 poles in the narrowest part; and now it can be no less. The Lynn river, however, has been thought to be still narrower than any other of equal size so near its outfall. Before the erection of the said Dams, or Sluices no complaints appear to have been made of either the haven, or yet the rivers above wanting a competent depth of water. Barges carrying 40 chalders could then go up the Ouse 36 miles, and those that carried from 26 to 30 chalders passed with ease to the very town of Cambridge. Whereas, in Badeslade’s time, flat bottom lighters, with eight or ten chalders, could hardly pass. Nor does it appear that things have gotten to a better state since. As to the haven, or harbour of Lynn, it was at those times wide, deep, and commodious. In 1645 its breadth is said to have been about a furlong. Ships then, and for some years after, rode at the south end of the town, and the west side in two fathoms, at low water. So they also did at the Crutch; and the largest ships could go to sea at neap tides. Two parts of the harbour were then remarkably deep; the one called _Fieln’s Road_, at the end of the west channel; and the other _Ferrier’s Road_, at the end of the east channel; and both of them three and half fathoms at low water. The tides too were then so strong as to make it necessary to use stream cables to moor the ships. _Guybon Goddard_, Esq. a former Recorder of Lynn (and brother in law to Sir Wm. Dugdale) who died about 1677, says, that at the World’s End in the Harbour of Lynn, there was not in any man’s remembrance less than ten or eleven feet at low water; and at a place called the _Mayor’s Fleet_ 8 or 9 feet. The channel to seaward, below the haven, he says, near half mile wide at low water, was yet of a depth sufficient for a Ship of 12 foot water to be brought up in any one tide without wind. {26a} Upon the whole, it appears that the state of Lynn Harbour, and of the rivers which discharge themselves that way, was before the erection of the Sluices much superior to what it has been since. {26b}

As to the State of the Ouse and the other rivers up in the country above Lynn, it seems to have been much better before the undertaking for a general drainage and erection of the Sluices than since that period, as appears from the views of the Sewers taken June 25, 1605, by Sir Robert Bevill, Sir John Peyton, &c. at Salters Lode, where the Nene falls into the Ouse. The commissioners declared the fall from the soil of the Fens to low watermark as no less than ten feet, beside the natural descent of the grounds from the uplands of Huntingdonshire thither; which shews the bottom of the Ouse to be there much deeper then than it was afterward. _Dugdale_ also, in his History of Embanking, says, that at Salter’s Lode there was ten feet fall of the fens at low water mark. From these statements it must necessarily follow, that the lands in the South Level, though unembanked, must in general have been in a comparatively good condition before the undertaking for a general drainage and erection of the Sluices; for, the fall being so great, no water could lie long upon them; and if at any time, by the descent of the upland waters, they became overflowed, they would not long continue in that state. At present, the case, it seems, is very different.