Maldon Boats Essex |
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The ancient town of Maldon in Essex is situated on the Blackwater estuary where the River Blackwater joins the River Chelmer and is the starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation. Maldon's name comes from Mael meaning 'meeting place' and dun meaning 'hill', so translated as "meeting place on the hill". East Saxons settled the area in the fifth century and the area to the south is still known as the Dengie peninsula after the Dæningas. Maldon became a significant Saxon port with a hythe or Quayside and artisan quarters. King Edward the Elder fortified the Borough in 916 against the Danish assaults. In 991 the famous Battle of Maldon took place on the outskirts of the town near the causeway to Northey Island. A large force of Vikings, fresh from their sacking of Ipswich, sailed up the Blackwater and encamped on Northey Island. The Saxon Earl of Essex Brythnoth, with his Saxon force, met them on the causeway and finally gave battle on higher ground inland. The battle, it is said, lasted several days with the Saxons finally defeated with the death of Brythnoth. At the time of the Doomsday Book in 1086 Maldon and Colchester were the only two Boroughs recorded in Essex. A Saxon port of some significance, Maldon became even more important in Norman times culminating in the granting of a Royal Charter to the town in 1171 by Henry II. The first mayor of Maldon was elected in 1687 during the reign of James II where previously two bailiffs had been the Chief Officers of the Borough. Maldon was chosen as one of the landing sites of a planned French invasion of Britain in 1744. However the French invasion fleet was wrecked in storms, and their forces never landed. The arrival of the railway in 1847 marked the decline of the ‘Thames sailing Barge’ of which there were hundreds operating on this coast with many based at Maldon’s Hythe. Maldon is twinned with the Dutch town of Cuijk. The charter between the two towns was signed in 1970. |
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