14 OLD I.OUGHTON HALL. 



Wear leaves the course of the old valley altogether, and turning to 

 the east, makes its way to the sea at Sunderland, and, principally 

 passing through sandstones and shales of the Coal-measures, and 

 cutting through the Magnesian Limestone just before entering the 

 sea." 



And on the same page it is stated that, for this reason, coal- 

 miners in Northumberland and Durham sometimes find that a coal 

 crops up underground "against a mass of Boulder Clay that fills an 

 ancient (pre-Glacial) rocky valley, of which the plain above gives -no 

 indication." 



Of the south-east of England he writes : — 



" We find that in places the Ouse and its tributaries in Bedford- 

 shire, and also many other streams, flow through areas covered with 

 this (Boulder) clay, and have cut themselves channels through it 

 in such a way as to lead to the inference that parts of the valleys 

 in which they run did not exist before the Boulder-bed period, but 

 that they have excavated their courses through it and the underlying 

 Oolitic strata, and thus formed a new system of valleys." 



See also Mr. Whitaker's " On a Deep Channel of Drift in the 

 Valley of the Cam, Essex," Essex Naturalist, 1889, vol. iii., 

 p. 140. (An abstract of a paper read at the Newcastle meeting of 

 the British Association.) 



OLD LOUGHTON HALL^ 



By WILLL^M CHAPMAN WALLER, M.A., F.S.A. 



T7ROM the days of Harold, (Godwin's son, down to the time of 

 James I., the Manor of Loughton knew no resident lord. 

 First the canons of the Holy Cross at Waltham ; and then, after 

 the dissolution of the monasteries, the kings and queens of England, 

 in their order, numbered it among their possessions. By both the 

 demesne lands were let out to farm, and the royal owners sometimes 

 even leased out the profits of the Manor Court.- But it is probable 

 that, from very early times, the site of Loughton Hall was occupied 

 by a manor-house, which was inhabited by ihejirtnarii, or lessees, of 

 the demesne. At all events, in 1522, we find one of them undef- 



1 This paper, although almost purely historical and antiquarian, may he admitted into our 

 pages, ina^^much as it relates to one of the most imporl,^nt of the Forest Manors. And further, 

 Mr. Waller has collected so much original matter, not to he found in the county histories, that we 

 feel sure our readers will pardon this incursion into the preserves of our friends the Es=ex 

 .■\rch3;ological Society! — Ed. 



2 Duchy of Lancaster: Leases; Div. .\i., No. 35 (iS May_ ig Eliz.). 



