Between Plumstead and Erith is a low-lying district, now being rapidly built over, that is still known by the poetic name of Abbey Wood, in memory of the beautiful Lesnes Abbey to which it once belonged, of which a few traces are still preserved, including a doorway and some portions of the garden walls. Founded in 1178 by Richard de Lacy for a branch of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, the abbey remained in their possession till it was confiscated by Henry VIII., and its site is now the property of Christ's Hospital. Where the fine old Abbey Grange once stood, is the so-called Abbey Farm that was built on the old foundations, and not very long ago was surrounded by beautiful woods. It was due to the untiring energy of the monks of Lesnes Abbey, aided by their neighbours, the owners of Plumstead manor, that the marshes which are now such a valuable property were first drained, but their work was again and again undone by the breaking down of their embankments {93} and the rushing in of the river. In 1527 two such breaches were made at Plumstead and Erith, and for more than thirty years the abbey lands near the Thames were one unbroken lake, all efforts to draw off the floods having been unavailing. In 1563, however, an Italian named Giacomo Aconzio, a refugee from religious persecution under the protection of Queen Elizabeth, offered to reclaim the submerged district, and an Act of Parliament was passed empowering him 'at his own cost and charges, during the term of four years, to inne, fence and win the said grounds or any parcel of them,' as a reward for which service he was to receive a moiety of the ground thus secured. Six hundred acres only were drained before the death of Aconzio, but the work begun by him was vigorously carried on after he had passed away, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century not more than five hundred acres remained under water. These, too, were eventually restored to cultivation, and since then no serious flood has occurred, though but for the prompt action of the engineers of the Woolwich Arsenal, when through an explosion of gunpowder at Crossness a breach one hundred yards wide was made in the river wall at Erith, the whole of the reclaimed lands would have been once more submerged. [Sidenote: Crossness Point]