In 1376 the Abbey met with its first great misfortune. In that year Nature conspired to the undoing of man’s great handiwork on the River, and the tide made a great breach at Dagenham, thereby causing the flooding of many acres of the Abbey lands, and driving the nuns from their home to higher ground at Billericay. So much was the prosperity of the Abbey affected by this disaster that the Convent of the Holy Trinity, in London, granted the Abbess the sum of twenty pounds annually (a large sum in those days) to help with the reclaiming of the land. Now of all the fine buildings of the Abbey practically nothing is left. At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries it passed into the King’s hands, and was afterwards sold to Lord Clinton. It has since gone through many ownerships, but no one has seen fit to preserve it. So that now practically all we can find is a sadly disfigured gateway at the entrance to the churchyard. This was at one time referred to as the “Chapel of the Holy Rood Loft atte Gate,” but the name was afterwards changed to the more conveniently spoken “Fire-bell Gate.” Of the actual Abbey buildings nothing remains. The London church of All Hallows, Barking, standing at the eastern end of Tower Street, quite close to Mark Lane Station, bears witness to the privileges and great power of the nunnery in ancient days, for the church was probably founded by the Abbey, and certainly the patronage of the living was in the hands of the Abbess from the end of the fourteenth century to the time of the suppression of the monasteries. Just to the west of the Creek mouth is the outfall of the northern drainage system of London. Vast quantities of sewage are brought daily, by means of a gigantic concrete outfall sewer, which passes across the flats from Old Ford and West Ham to Barking; and there they are deposited in huge reservoirs covering ten acres of ground. The sewage passes through four great compartments which together hold thirty-nine million gallons; and, having been rendered more or less innocuous, is discharged into the Thames at high tide. This arrangement was one of the chief objections urged against the great barrage at Gravesend. CHAPTER SIX _Woolwich_ For many years there was a local saying to the effect that “more wealth passes through Woolwich than through any other town in the world,” and, though at first sight this may seem a gross exaggeration, yet when we remember that Woolwich is in two parts, one on each side of the River, we can see at once the justice of that claim, for it simply meant that all the vast traffic to and from the Pool of London went along the Thames as it flowed between the two divisions of the town.