iQo I2AAK Walton's association with the river lea. 



" At the sign of the Three Trouts in St. Paul's Churchyard on 

 the north side, you may be fitted with all sorts of the best fishing 

 tackle by John Margrave." 



In order to trace the nature of Izaak Walton's association with 

 the River Lea, we have to look a little closely into the plan of his 

 book, but as there must be few who have not read it, it will be 

 unnecessary to do more than recall the fact that in the latest edition 

 issued in the author's lifetime it takes the form of a conversation 

 between an angler, a huntsman, and a falconer (Fiscator, Venator, 

 and Auceps), each of whom in turn discourses on his particular 

 recreation, and give his reasons for maintaining its superiority to the 

 others. 



Fiscator, while ascending Tottenham Hill on a fishing excursion, 

 overtakes Venator and Auceps, and after an exchange of compli- 

 ments, expresses a hope that they were going towards Ware. 



Venator replies that he is going to the " Thatched House " at 

 Hoddesdon, where he has an appointment with some friends ; and 

 Auceps says he will accompany them as far as Theobalds, where he 

 must turn off to see a friend who mews a hawk for him. 



Discoursing by the way, they reach Tottenham High Cross. 

 This is generally assumed to be an " Eleanor Cross," that is, one of 

 the crosses erected by Edward I. in memory of his Queen Eleanor, 

 to mark the route of her funeral cortege between Grantham, where 

 she died (in November, 1291), and Westminster, where she was 

 buried. But Tottenham was not one of the places where the corpse 

 of Queen Eleanor rested, and the Cross was probably only one of the 

 wayside crosses which were once common in England, as they still 

 are in many parts of the continent. It could not have been a 

 market-cross, for there is no mention to be found of any market 

 there. About 1580 it was merely a column of wood capped with a 

 square sheet of lead to shoot the water off every way. Ten years 

 later Norden described it as a wooden cross lately raised on a little 

 mound of earth. But both cross and name were of much more 

 remote date. About 1600, the cross being decayed, Dean Wood, 

 who lived in a house to the east of it, had it taken down, and erected 

 in its place one of brick, octagonal at the base, square above, with a 

 sundial on one of the faces, and crowned with a crocketed terminal 

 weathercock. This was the Tottenham High Cross to which Walton 

 bade his companions welcome. 



It lasted for over two centuries, when, falling out of repair, the 



