"...The village of Moonfleet lies half a mile from the sea on the right or west bank of the Fleet stream. This rivulet which is so narrow as it passes the houses that I have known a good jumper clear it without a pole broadens out into salt marshes below the village and loses itself at last in a lake of brackish water. The lakeis good for nothing except sea-fowl herons and oysters and forms such a place as they call in the Indies a lagoon; being shut off from the open Channel by a monstrous great beach or dike of pebbles of which I shall speak more hereafter. When I was a child I thought that this place was called Moonfleet because on a still night whether in summer or in winter frosts the moon shone very brightly on the lagoon; but learned afterwards that 'twas but short for 'Mohune-fleet' from the Mohunes a great family who were once lords of all these parts..."