Towards the end of last century a scheme was set on foot for the construction of an immense dock here, because, it was urged, the excavations already done by the water would render the cost of construction smaller. Parliament agreed to the proposal, and it appeared as if this lonely part of Essex might become a great commercial centre; but the construction of the Tilbury Docks effectively put an end to the scheme. Now there is a Dagenham Dock, but it is merely a fair-sized wharf, engaged for the most part in the coal trade. Barking stands on the River Roding, a tributary which comes down by way of Ongar from the Hatfield Forest district near Epping, and which, before it joins the main River, widens out to form Barking Creek, which was, before the rise of Grimsby, the great fishing harbour. Barking is a place of great antiquity, and of great historic interest, though one would scarcely gather as much from a casual glance at its very ordinary streets with their commonplace shops and rows of drab houses—just as one would scarcely gather any idea of the charm of the Roding at Ongar and above from a glimpse of the slimy Creek. The town, in fact, goes even so far as to challenge the rival claims of Westminster and the City to contain the site of the earliest settlements of prehistoric man along the River valley. And certainly the earthworks discovered on the north side of the town—fortifications more than forty acres in extent and quite probably of Ancient British origin—even if they do not justify the actual claim, at least support the town in its contention that it is a place of great age. Little or nothing is known, however, till we come to the time of the foundation of its Abbey in the year 670. In that year, perhaps by reason of its solitude out there in the marshes, the place appealed to St. Erkenwald, the Bishop of London, as a good place for a monastic institution, and the great Benedictine Abbey of the Blessed Virgin, the first English convent for women, arose from the low-lying fenlands, and started its life under the direction of the founder’s sister, St. Ethelburgha. It was destroyed by the Danes when they ventured up river in the year 870, but was rebuilt by King Edgar, after lying practically desolate for a century. By the time of the Conquest it had become a place of very great importance in the land, and to it came William after the treaty with the citizens of London, and to it he returned when his coronation was over, and there established his Court till such time as the White Tower should be finished by the monk Gundulf and his builders. Certainly it is a strange commentary on the irony of Time that this present-day desolation of drab streets should once have been the centre of fashion, to which came all the nobles in the south of England, bringing their ladies fair, decked out in gay apparel to appear before the King.