2o6 



THE OLD TRACK FROM LONDON TO EPPING. 



lly W. C. WALLER, M.A., F.S.A. 



npHE old main road from London to Epping, as readers of Mr. 

 Winstone's book (" Extracts from the Minutes of the Epping 

 and Ongar Highway Trusts," 1891) are aware, ran through Chigwell, 

 Abridge, and Theydon Gernon. l]ut there was also another route, 

 available, at any rate, for travellers on horseback, as we learn from 

 Pepys' Diary. On P^ebruary 24th, 165Q-60, Pepys rode, he says, from 

 London to Foulmer, within six miles of Cambridge, by way of Ware 

 and Puckridge. On the 27th he returned, with a companion, by 

 way of Saffron Walden ; the road thence to Epping, where they 

 stayed the night, being " pretty good, but the weather rainy." On 

 the 28th, he continues, " Up in the morning, then to London 

 through the forest, where we found the way good, but only in one 

 path, which we kept as if we had rode through a kennel all the way." 

 The precise force of the word " kennel," as used here, is not quite 

 easy to determine. If the path had been turned into a sort of 

 channel, or water-course, by the rain already referred to on the 

 previous day, Pepys would hardly have called the way good, as he 

 does in his description of it ; although it is probable that what he 

 thought a good road, we should regard as a shockingly bad one. 

 Possibly he meant merely a straight, narrow track. 



Which way, then, did Mr. Pepys and his friend come on their 

 journey to London? The answer seems to be ready to our hands in 

 an old map, drawn somewhere between 1604 and 1626, which is 

 preserved among the Hatfield House MSS. (Cecil Papers : Ba., ''/as)? 

 and entitled " Part of New Lodge half walke ..." (New Lodge, 

 it may be noted in passing, seems identical with Sotheby's, or, as it 

 is now called, Fairmead Lodge, near High Beach.) The map in 

 question shows a nearly straight track running as from Epping 

 Church direct to Fairmead. It is marked " London way from Eppinge," 

 and passes east of "Copthall Parke," "^Voodridden Groundes," and 

 what is marked as "^^'ilson's Lodge," which apparently stood on the 

 site of the one already referred to as Sotheby's. North-east of this 

 lodge, across and beyond Fayimeade, a house called " Standing" is 

 depicted. The direction of the track is from north to south, with a 

 trend westwards, if we follow the orientation of the map itself. 



After a comparison with later Surveys, one inclines to come to the 

 conclusion that Mr. Pepys, on leaving lipping, followed the line of 



