2 24 NAVESTOCK IN OLDEN DAYS ; 



Putting on one side Dr. Stukeley's unsupported theory that it 

 signified " The Old Oak by the Temple," we turn to the various 

 spellings of the name which occur in various documents. Thus we 

 find Nastok, Nastoke, Nasestocha, Nasingstock, etc., and possibly 

 Astoca, of Domesday. Morant suggests Nafis or Noefis, without 

 giving its signification, and stocce, felled timber. Unfortunately, the 

 name is not referred to in Isaac Taylor's " Words and Places." He 

 only tells us that stoke or stowe was a common sufifix, and signified 

 a place stockaded with stocks or piles, like a New Zealand Pah. 



So much for the name. I pass on to notice one of the most 

 interesting relics of Saxon times to be met with in our Parochial 

 History. This is to be found in the ceremony of Watch and Ward, 

 known throughout the Hundred of Ongar as the Tale, Tallying, or 

 Cutting, of the Wardstaffe, at a certain period of the year known as 

 Hocktide. This festival commenced a fortnight after Easter. We 

 gather from documents of the 13th century that it was one of the 

 most important business seasons of the year. Thus at this period 

 Parliaments were wont to assemble, weights and measures were 

 adjusted, rents and other dues were called in, and the above 

 ceremony of the Wardstaffe was performed. 



An account of this Tale or Tallying of the Wardstaffe occurs 

 in Blount's " Ancient Tenures " and in many other authors, but 

 they are all more or less copied from the particulars furnished by 

 Morant in his " History of Essex." 



As the subject is one of great interest, I venture, even at the 

 risk of wearying you, to repeat the greater part of Morant's descrip- 

 tion, omitting only such particulars as may be unnecessary to the 

 subject in hand, and making only a few additions and alterations 

 suggested by Mr. Singer in "Notes and Queries."^** 



"This description is taken from an account of the rents of the Hundred in 

 the time of John Stoner (of Loughton) who had a grant of it in his life time 34 

 Henry VHI. and died in 1556, and in which grant the above mentioned cere- 

 monies are said to have been such as have been executed, done, paid, used, and 

 observed and kept not only in the time of Edw"* 3rd and Robert Bruce some time 

 King of Scots but also in the time of his noble progenitors Kings of England 

 long before when the Saxons inhabited this realm as manifestly may appear more 

 at length by ancient records thereof made by Humphrey de Bohun then Earl 

 of Hereford and Essex and Constable of England, Lord of the said Hundred 

 dated at Pleashy 10. July xi of same King Edward as also by divers other 

 ancient and sundrie notable Records, the same remaining written iin the Saxon 

 tongue. 



10 3rd Vol., isl Series, p. 57. 



