As a distraction we jumped on a train last week and went to Barking … mad? No, we’d enjoyed a talk at the Essex Record Office History Group earlier this autumn and placed ‘a must do’ in the diary. The talk was about Eastbury Manor which is situated in the centre of Barking a little to the east of the church and abbey remains which are nearer the mainline station.

The visit certainly had a ‘nautical’ interest…

Eastbury Manor was built in the mid 1500’s after Henry VIII pulled down the abbey and confiscated all abbey lands. The land was broken up and sold off … Eastbury Manor became the centre of several farms with lands extending down to the Thames along Barking and Halfway Reaches. The manor enjoyed close access to a waterway which ran into Barking Creek (River Roding), this was Mayes Brook – it has been rerouted over the centuries, but comes out more or less in same place through a sluice. The waterway here to the east was a large shallow lagoon called the Rant. Its ‘basin’ is probably the same which filled during the infamous ‘Dagenham Breach’ in 1707. A pool still remains by the Ford Works here on the river’s shores.

Map of area – section from NT display.

Produce was shipped out via the waterway passing the manor close by. This was rerouted at some point during remodeling of the manors grounds, removing a convoluted loop. It is reputed that some of the infamous men involved with ‘The Guy Fawkes’ plot came here by water. One of the men’s sister was married to a ‘Lord’ who was apparently tipped off by someone still unknown and had the under-crofts of the Houses of Parliament inspected.. I was interested for it was up the creek we sailed in Whimbrel a few seasons ago when I was writing ‘Rochester to Richmond‘…

A straight on view of the manor house.

The house now sits in the midst of a ‘council’ estate and is completely hemmed in … this happened between the two world conflicts during the 1920s. The house was one of the earliest purchases by the organisation which ultimately became the National Trust. But, the house was let out for other purposes including use as a museum. The Trust has at long last realised that it isn’t only the large estates outside conurbations that need to be ‘visit friendly’. They’ve also done this with a house in Rainham.

One of the upper rooms.

The ‘painted room’ a rarity…

Much of the house isn’t furnished other than sparingly, yet, some of the rooms have survived as 1600s artifacts whilst others are as found and date from a refurbishment soon after 1900, when only part of the house was used as such. the building was largely a ‘barn’ for a long time! Also, it was once owned by the Whitbread family and used for compressed animal feeds used by shipping – for a period up to around 1800. The ‘beer’ family – I couldn’t find out.

There is a lot to see and take in. It is very much a worthwhile exercise…

Leaving the manor we headed back towards the town centre and the old dock area. An old tide mill building still stands at the inner end of the dock. Its driving wheel is lang gone. It was until recently a card factory, but is up for sale.

The mill building…

At this top end there are two runs of water from the river inland – there would have been a sluice… Between the two river runs is an island. The road along here has street lamps of some note. The tops are made of fretwork with different designs. There is NO information, but from what we could deduce they depict Barking through time. Around a viewing/seating area on the island are some railing too of interest. The back supports have the names of vessels in a fretwork design. One caught my eye: it is a barge name – the Magnet … probably a coaster of more recent times, but who knows!

P.S. The Magnet’s remains are just above Rochester M2/Rail bridges immediately downstream of a wharf on the ‘south’ side.

 

Note the lamp posts…

Vessel names in fret work supports…

Looking down the dock, which is currently largely clear of vessels (N.B. Google earth shows it to be full of ‘live-aboards’) except for a brace below a ‘waste’ wharf and a sunken something in the middle of the basin, and a number down the ‘town’ side.

The basin.

Across the road from a huge open space – Abbey Fields – abutting the basin are a mix of flats and offices. Our ‘boy’ worked here some years ago when with the Malaysian International Shipping Corporation! But what caught my eye was a ‘dinghy’ embalmed in a piece of ‘ice’ – the adjacent building is called The Ice House! Clearly this was a place for the importation of ice long ago…

What a waste of a dinghy, was my reaction…

An ice embalmed dinghy … and bench!

Time soon traveled on and at this late time of the year, dusk comes early. It hadn’t been much of a bright day in any case, so we began to wend our way homewards, looking at the church and abbey footings on the way.

St Margaret’s Church. It was closed unfortunately – we missed it by five minutes… Didn’t check web site!

Amazingly, the abbey’s footings have survived. The ‘ground’ would have been more or less the floor of the under-crofts.

On some plaques fixed to the abbey gate house, still standing, was a piece of interesting information – Captain Cook married his wife here in 1762. His wife, Elizabeth, was the daughter of the Bell Inn, Wapping owned by Samuel Batts and one of Cook’s benefactors. Cook had moved from the mercantile marine to the Royal Navy in 1755 at Wapping. Amazing how the ‘sea’ connections pop up!

Of the visit, we both thought the lack of information around the dock basin and mill area to be sad. So many places have such boards sited to give just that little bit of information which you can later chew over and investigate further if so desirous. And, for me, I thought the dock to be a much wasted asset, however, since the building of a relatively low level bridge over the creek a little below the docks sluices and gates, masted craft cannot access unless mast can be lowered … how often is this seen these days? Lots!

Now, if you’d like to go, the manor is on the National Trust list – so, enjoy…

‘My’ section from Streetmap.com of the area covered.

P.S. It wasn’t a day for sailing, never mind that the tides were early morning and late afternoon/evening, so I wasn’t missing out!