HIGH TIDES IN THE THAMES [To the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The following extracts from Stow's Survey of London, 1633 edition, may be of interest. Describing the tides in the Thames, he says :- "Sometimes also they rise so high (if the wind be at the North or North-east, which bringeth in the water with more vehemency, because the Tide that filleth the channel, cometh from Scotland ward) that the Thames overfloweth her bankes neere unto London, which hapneth especially in the fuls and changes of January and February wherein the lower grounds are (of custome) soonest drowned."
" We read also, that in the yeare, 1236, the River of Thames over- flowing the bankes, caused the marshes about Woolwitch to bee all on a Sea, wherein floats and other Vessels were carried with the Streame, so that besides cattell, the greatest number of men, women and children, Inhabitants there, were drowned. In the great Palace of Westminster, men did row with wherries in the middest of the Hall, being forced to ride to their chambers. More- over in the yeere 1242, the Thames overflowing the bankes about Lambich, drowned houses and fields, by the space of 6 miles, so that in the great Hall at Westminster men tooke their horses, because the water ran over all."
Swayne's Hall, Widdington, Newport, Essex.
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