28o 



ON THE REMAINS OF A SUPPOSED 

 PILE-DWELLING AT WOODHAM WALTER, 



ESSEX. 



BY MILLER CHRISTY, F.L.S. 



THE large expanse of waste land known as Woodham 

 Walter Common is intersected, near its southern extremity, 

 by a small streamlet, which occupies a remarkably-narrow steep- 

 sided valley — certainly one of the narrowest, deepest, and most 

 picturesque valleys in Essex. This stream, after leaving the 

 Common on its eastern side, runs past the village of Woodham 

 Walter, and thence into the Chelmer near Ulting Hall. 



About two hundred yards below the point at which the 

 stream leaves the Common, its valley is crossed, at a specially- 

 narrow place, by a massive artificial dani of earth, about fifty 

 yards long and twenty-five feet high. This clearly once held up 

 a mill-pool five or six acres in extent, but is now cut through 

 by the stream. The dam has evidently been broken for a long 

 period ; for oaks and other trees at least several hundred years old 

 grow on the dam itself and on ground which once formed the 

 bottom of the pool. 



Similar dams are found commonly throughout Essex, wher- 

 ever the valley of a stream permits of one being constructed with 

 advantage. They held up the waters which, in Mediaeval times, 

 supplied the power needed to drive corn-mills, fulling-mills, and 

 the like. Their pools served also as fish-ponds in the days when 

 means of transport were so bad that fresh sea-fish were almost 

 unknown, except upon the coast, and fresh-water fish were of real 

 importance as a form of food-supply. Sometimes a string of such 

 pools exists, one above the other, along a valley, as at Leighs 

 Priory, Woodham Walter Hall, and elsewhere in this county. 



About a hundred yards below the large dam above-mentioned 

 is a much smaller dam, not more than about twenty yards long 

 and ten feet high. This is also broken. It is situated just below 

 the point at which a small tributary streamlet joins the main 

 valley, and can never have held up a pool of more than an acre 

 in extent. The bed of the pool is now overgrown with bushes, 

 while an oak of fair size grows actually on the dam itself. One 



