ON A RECENT SUBSIDENCE AT MUCKING, ESSIiX. 2jl 



they were nevertheless recognised by their traditional name. On 

 p. 41 of Palin's Stifford and its Neighbourhood, Mr. R. 

 Meeson says : — " A curious feature of the district is the occur- 

 rence of the Dane-holes as they are called by the country people,' 1 

 etc. (the italics are mine). He looks upon them as "simply 

 excavations to obtain chalk for lime-burning,'' a view which the 

 remark of the young labourer's father at Billericay is in itself 

 sufficient to refute. In such a matter, indeed, the view of a man 

 ignorant of and consequently free from the influence of anti- 

 quarian theories is of special value. And as apparently the 

 caving in of a denehole at, or near, Billericay was not an 

 excessively unusual occurrence in the experience of an agricul- 

 tural labourer of middle or old age in 1871, this recognition of 

 them there seems to suggest that they were known and used by 

 the agricultural population down to a comparatively modern 

 period. And the few broken tiles found in this Billericay pit, 

 unsatisfactory as they may be as affording evidence of its 

 antiquity, are at least important as human work found in it. For 

 as these pits were mainly storehouses for grain and other 

 vegetable produce, and were often strengthened where necessary 

 by timber supports, their sudden collapse would leave in the 

 ruins few objects of an imperishable kind besides the bricks or 

 tiles which may have been used in their construction. Old 

 villages and farmhouses are, in the great majority of cases, on 

 sandy or gravelly soil, for the sake of the water supply attainable 

 at a moderate depth ; and Billericay is no exception to this 

 general rule. But underground chambers in such strata would 

 have special need of an approximately water-tight roof. This 

 might be afforded by a covering of tiles above a timber frame- 

 work. Decay of the timber would in time cause a sudden 

 collapse, with the result that tiles would naturally be the first 

 and possibly the only durable objects of man's handiwork to be 

 discovered by digging. 



A paper, entitled " Miscellaneous Notes on Deneholes," 

 which I read before the Essex Field Club on October 27th, 1883, 

 ends with the following note, re-introduced here on account of 

 its bearing on the Mucking subsidences and their probable 



explanation. 



" Norfolk 

 My friend Mr. H. B. Woodward, of the Geological Survey, has kindly sent 

 me the following account of the discovery of some buried wheat near Lammas 



