Page:VCH Essex 1.djvu/496

 A HISTORY OF ESSEX in those cases where their endowments made them sources of revenue. Any mention of others would only be incidental. It is certain, however, if only from analogy, that Colchester must already have possessed several churches, and indeed seven priests are named in the survey. Of the large endowment here entered as belonging to St. Peter's church, no trace is found afterwards, so that it would seem to have passed into lay hands. It appears to be implied that the church had been in the king's gift. The remarkable ' soke ' of the Bishop of London within the walls of Colchester is not mentioned in the survey, being entered with his own lands. 1 It consisted of two portions, both described as ' in Col- chester,' one of these, which consisted of fourteen houses and four acres, ' paid no due but scot, except to the bishop ' ; the other assessed at two hides was held of him by Hugh and paid due(s). It must be the former which is described in a fine of 1206 as a 'soke' bounded by Head Street (on the east) and the town wall (on the west) and extending ' from St. Mary's lane to the lane next Headgate ' ('Havedgate'), 2 which bound- aries remain unchanged. It then belonged to ' the barony of the Bishop of London ' and included the ' schools ' of the town and the church of St. Mary and chapel of St. Andrew, the advowson of which church was reserved to the bishop, in the gift of whose successors it remained. It is probable that the whole of the bishop's Domesday holding is repre- sented by the existing parish of St. Mary's-at-the- Walls, which stretches out from the church for a mile to the south-east and is reckoned to contain 487! acres. The boundaries and ' detached portions ' of the ancient parishes of Colchester preserve, as in other boroughs, traces of its early history. THE COAST FISHERIES IN DOMESDAY 8 The word applied to the coast fisheries and to the river fisheries in Domesday is the same, and when we read, for instance, that at East Mersea there were ' four fisheries,' it seems clear that these also must have been fixed contrivances of some kind. It is at first sight diffi- cult to understand how the principle of the weir fishery, as prevailing, for instance, on the river Lea, could be applied on the open coast, or even in creeks and estuaries. But the provision in ' Magna Carta ' that weirs (kydelli) should be taken down ' nisi per costeram maris ' implies that it must have been done. Domesday mentions the existence of a ' heiamaris ' at South- wold, and this, as Ellis observes, must have been a ' sea-hedge,' though his identification of it with a species of net is doubtful. A sea-weir, it appears, is a contrivance still in use where the coast shelves off, as it usually does in Essex, in ' flats ' and ' sands.' We find it thus de- scribed 4 : On some parts of the coast, where a considerable extent of sand is laid bare at low-water, the weir consists of a wattled fence so placed as to form a number of zig-zags along the line of beach, the lower angles of the weir being just at low-water mark. . . and at the low-water angle a conical wicket basket with a mouse-trap entrance was securely fixed at the place where the two arms or fences nearly met. The manner in which such a weir works is very simple. At high-water the whole weir is covered by the water, and fish may in some cases enter it above the fence ; but as there is nothing to prevent fish from passing round the two ends of the long zig-zag weir, no doubt many of those which are caught enter in that direction, and swimming along between the weir and the shore, find their way into the V-shaped enclosures, from which, as the tide ebbs and the top of the fence appears above water, they cannot make their escape. Ultimately many of the fish make their way into the wicker-baskets we have mentioned. 1 See p. 440. 2 Feet of Fines : Essex, i. 39, (No. 210). 3 See p. 380 above. 4 Fisheries Exhibition Literature (1884), i. 318. 424