ibO NOTES —ORIGINAL AND SELECTED 



. . . We walk and dream— and miles of profoundly solitary woods, 

 and old solitary Jager-houses, and primitive villages in deep remote glens, and 

 antiquated towns in rarely visited regions, rise before us as we go." How 

 changed is all this now ! 



The whole article (some eight columns) is full of interest, and was written 

 in view of a Bill in Parliament for the enclosure of Epping and Hainault 

 Forests. The concluding paragraph is as follows :— " The Commissioners of 

 Woods and Forests may, perhaps, think they are acting quite poetically in 

 saying with Milton, in ' Comus.' ' To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures 

 new ' ; but ' fresh fields and pastures new ' obtained by the destruction of the 

 only metropolitan forest, would be a metamorphosis which the London public 

 would never cease to deplore." 



At that date (1851) and later, the writer, though then a mere boy, can well 

 remember yet, the Forest district as it was ; having frequently accom_panied 

 his grandfather in various drives ; when the "Cherry Pie House" in Wan- 

 stead " Town " and the Eagle at Snaresbrook, were the most quiet and 

 primitive of inns, for the entertainment of " man and beast" — where hundreds 

 of acres of land now built over were dense and open forest, which extended 

 beyond the High Stone nearly up to Leytonstone and right away to Bush- 

 wood ; while the triple avenues of the latter stretched nearly as far as Cann- 

 hall. — Walter Crouch, Wanstead, May loth, 1901. 



Ancient Boat found about 1830 in the Lea River Deposits near 



Temple Mills. — In connection with the finding of the so-called " Viking 



Ship " at the. excavations at Walthamstow (ante p. 151 and plate IIL) it may 



be interesting to recall the account of the discovery of an ancient boat given 



in Robinson's History of Hackney.'' It was found [ciyca 1830) in excavating 



the East London Company's Reservoirs a little to the north of Temple Mills, 



between those marshes and Lea Bridge. The boat lay at a depth of about 



4 feet below the surface of the marsh; it was "embedded in a stratum of 



black-clay with shells intermixed : this stratum continues of the same quality 



to the depth of 5 feet ; above the boat there was a stratum of yellow clay 



about 4 feet deep. The bottom of the boat was decayed, and at the end 



nearest the bow it was very imperfect, and broke into pieces when it was 



attempted to take it out of the place of its deposit, but left an impression from 



which a sketch was taken. Its dimensions were 20 feet from head to stern, 



6 feet wide, and 18 inches deep ; it was what is termed clinker-built, the joints 



being made tight with a cement in which cow-hair was used." A plate of 



sections is given, with a plan of the river, showing the spot at which the 



boat was lying. The details of the sections are examined by Mr. Whitaker in 



his Geology of London, vol. i., pp. 473-4. Maitland (History of London) talks of 



a boat having been found in " Stanstead " at the erection of Stanstead Bridge, 



but Camden in his Britannia fixes the point near the place where the boat is 



above stated to have been unearthed, by saying that the boat was found, 



" north of Temple Mills." 



I The History and Antiquities of Hackney, in the County of Middlesex. By Wm. Robinson, 

 LL.D., F.S.A., 2 vols., Lond,, 1842. 



