Journal of Proceediiujti. xxxv 



of 'Barnaby Kudgc' Forty years had gone by, and yet the village could 

 have little changed since Dickens first saw it. It remained an illustration, 

 and a most pleasing one, of an old country hamlet, the like of which 

 Washington Irving and Miss Mitford described so charmingly in their 

 books, and Mr. Caldecott drew with such graphic beauty ; yet not ten 

 miles from London ! Search the city round in double the radius they 

 would not find its equal. The village gives its name to a parish in the 

 Hundred of Ongar, and in years gone by was contained in the great forest 

 of Essex, when the forests now known as Epping and Hainhault met on 

 the banks of the lloding and formed one great woodland. The speaker 

 examined the derivation of the name (which is spelled in many ways in 

 old records), tracing it to the two Saxon words "cing" and "well" or 

 "Kings-well." Of the seven manors comprised in the parish, two, 

 Chigwell and Woolston, according to Domesday Book, were royal 

 demesnes, Earl Harold holding them of Edward the Confessor ; hence 

 the first syllable. To find the origin of the second they must go to the 

 hamlet of Chigwell Eow ; and in an old MS. about the year 1746 he read— 

 "If any credit is to be given to ancient report, we may reasonably 

 conclude that the salutary effect of this water was well known ages ago, 

 the place where it issued out being signified with the name of King's 

 Well— for Chigwell is only a corruption of King's Well,' C and Ch in the 

 Saxon language having the power of K, but by losing that power and 

 dropping the N the name was ridiculously {sic) converted into Chig." 

 . . . . " This much injured tho' useful water is found issuing out of the 

 declivity out of the rising hill on the south side of the wind-mill, in the 

 Wood or Forest." . . . . " This is supposed to be the old well, and in all 

 probability was so, as the vestiges of some kind of building appear at this 

 day. Another opening is discovered to ye west of this hill, and a third 

 well has been lately dug on the north side of the same hill, in a field 

 behind the house called Wlritehall, which proves to be more strongly 

 impregnated with mineral quahties than either of the other two." Also 

 Dr. Frewin, born at Chigwell Row, and celebrated in his day, says— 

 " This county, especially the hilly parts of it, has been remarkable for the 

 variety of medicinal waters, which have been taken notice of from time to 

 time by several able physicians and historians; and upon a strict 

 examination I find that the water which vents itself at several openings 

 at Chigwell is as much deserving of notice as any in the county, and I 

 doubt not will be found as efficacious in many chronical diseases as any 

 in the kingdom." Here, then, they had evidence of the existence of these 

 wells early in the last century. But the name of the \dllage carried them 

 back to Saxon times, and it is not impossible that our Roman conquerors 

 may have visited it. The Romans understood the value of mineral springs 

 and the bath, and at several of our English springs their presence has 

 been established. In Essex they had plenty of evidence of their occupation. 

 In their own neighbourhood, at Ley ton, and in the town of Ongar, and 

 even within the borders of Chigwell parish, remains had been found 



