222 NAVESTOCK IN OLDEN DAYS; 



They thought it cherished, increased, and preserved all things, as the learned 

 Hyde writes upon Ulegh Begh. 



"Oct. 20, 1749, at the Alate Temple on Navestock Common. 



"Aug. 5, 1761, at the Alate Temple on Navestock Common. 'Tis much 

 oregrown with fern, and but lately, so that 'tis difficult fully to discern it. 

 They have dug gravel there lately. Fo.xglove in bloom there still. Near it, 

 by the windmill, is another work, for sports, like that in Westmoreland, 

 called King Arthur's Round Table." 



It will be seen from the above that Dr. Stukeley persisted in what 

 his biographer terms his "fanciful conjecture" for a period ranging 

 over thirty-six years. 



We have to-day identified the site of the so-called " Alate 

 T'emple," having proceeded there by the same route as that made 

 use of by Stukeley in 1749, viz., by Weald. We found what remains 

 of it upon and embracing part of the road leading from Ditchleys, 

 at S. by W., to Princes Gate, N. by E., and still touching very 

 nearly upon the division dikes of the Hundreds of Chafford and 

 Ongar. At Stukeley's last recorded visit, in 1761, the spot was still 

 a wide and open common. It was very shortly afterwards enclosed, 

 as we gather from Gough's edition of Camden, published in 1789. 



This common enclosed, therefore, between 1 761 and 1789,^ is 

 now, and has been for many years, under cultivation, and, doubt- 

 less, the only remains of this ancient earthwork still visible form 

 but a small portion of the Temple which presented itself before the 

 admiring eyes of Dr. Stukeley. 



[See copy of Dr. Stukeley's plan of the " Temple " in the report 

 of the meeting at Navestock on July 28th, 1894, ante p. 214. — Ed.] 



I leave it to you to determine how far the plan drawn by the 

 learned doctor, and now in your hands, may be recognisable in the 

 greatly diminished but still surviving site of his Alate Temple. 



//. THE EARTHWORK IN FORTIFICATION WOOD. 



A second survival of the handiwork of the ancient inhabitants 

 of Navestock is to be found in Fortification Wood, situated, roughly 

 speaking, to the south of the road leading from the eastern portion of 

 Navestock Park to Bois Hall and Dudbrook, and bounded on the 

 north by Drake's Hill and Slades. This wood is marked on the 

 Ordnance Survey by the word " camp," and the shape of such camp 

 is more or less defined on the six inches to a mile issue of such 

 Survey. 



6 Since writing ihe above, I find the date of its Enclosure .\ct to have been 176S. 



