34 



ON SOME ANCIENT LAKE REMAINS AT PEL- 

 STEAD, WITH NOTICES OF OTHER SIMI- 

 LAR REMAINS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. 



I'.v J. FRENCH. 

 [Read Xoveiiibei- sSth, rSgi.) 



A BOUT a mile north of Felstead village there is a brook running 

 ■^^ in an east and west direction. The brook has worn a consid- 

 erable valley in geological time and consequently presented advan- 

 tages for the formation of a lake by means of a dam stretched across 

 the valley. At one place where the sides are somewhat steeper 

 there exists such a dam, and the meadow in which the dam is found 

 has been called from time immemorial the " Mill Lands." The dam 

 is certainly suggestive of a mill and hence probably its name. 

 There is, however, no evidence that a mill ever stood there, and a 

 brief examination with a short process of reasoning will prove almost 

 conclusively that the site has never been thus occupied. But the 

 arguments for or against may be omitted, as we have only now to 

 consider the antiquity of the dam and the original purpose for which 

 it was raised. 



The suggestion that the dam must be referred to times of tribal 

 occupation and consequently of great antiquity, is entire due to the 

 Rev. J. \V. Kenworthy, the vicar of Braintree, who on a previous oc- 

 casion was instrumental in discovering a Neolithic lake in Cumber- 

 land. Working on his suggestion some difficulties and observations 

 which had long been made have been found to receive a solution ; 

 and there can be no doubt that we have in these ancient dams, which 

 may be numerous, relics of a time equivalent to or preceding the 

 Roman occupation. 



The evidences of age for the " Mill Lands " dam are purely 

 geological, and must be stated in detail and then collated in order to 

 give a sufficient demonstration. 



When the Great Eastern Railway Company constructed their 

 branch line from Braintree to Bishop's Stortford, they had occasion to 

 make an embankment along part of the bed of the brook and 

 through the dam in its middle (which had been previously breached 

 at that place). The effect of making this embankment was to divert 

 the course of the stream, and a new channel was cut for it partly on 

 the south side of the railway embankment and partly on the north, 

 the stream crossing the embankment by means of a culvert. The 



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