132 A. GILES PtTLLEK OST THE EIVER EIB 



Bridf?e. First, along the centre of the road leading from Standon 

 and Hanging Wood to Barwick Ford lies the houndary between the 

 ecclesiastical district of High Cross and the remaining part of the 

 original parish of Standon, which is (ecclesiastically) attached to 

 the parish church. Below Barwick Ford and Bridge the river Rib 

 (except at one or two places) is itself the boundary between the 

 district of High Cross and the parish of Thundridge. The wall or 

 fence which divides the garden of Little Barwick Farm from the 

 roadway in front of it, is the boundary between the parishes of 

 Standon and Thundridge, and this wall or fence is exactly in a line 

 with the handrail which protects the footbridge. In September, 

 1849, the footbridge, either from decay or accident, became im- 

 passable, and, owing to a dispute between the two parishes, twelve 

 months elapsed before the river was again spanned by a wooden 

 bridge. This was swept away by a flood of unusual height on the 

 3rd of August, 1879, and has been replaced by one more substanti- 

 ally built. 



In the home-meadow or pasture-field next below Great Barwick 

 homestead we find an evidence of the great antiquity of the place 

 in a row of ancient pollards — hornbeams — to which no precise date 

 can be assigned, but which, from their number (six) and position, 

 must at some former time have formed part of, or stood in the line 

 of, some fence or boundary. Proceeding a hundred yards in the 

 direction thus indicated, we find indications of a roadway having 

 formerly existed in a depression twenty feet broad leading to and 

 terminating in the bed of the river, about twenty yards above the 

 spot where, in the memory of living persons, stood some floodgates. 

 Exactly at this spot another clearly-marked depression in the turf, 

 twenty feet in breadth, marks the site of a second roadway, and 

 this convergence of roads, now no longer used, can only be ex- 

 plained by supposing that in former times a water-mill stood where 

 the remains of the floodgates are still visible. 



Half a mile below Barwick, an ancient manor-farm named Saw- 

 trees crowns the hill on the left bank of the stream, whilst on the 

 highest point of the hill on the right bank stand two cottages 

 which bear the name of Haven End ; in the last century a small 

 farmhouse and homestead existed here, and earlier still a village 

 which gave its name to the surrounding district, there being a local 

 tradition that in the reign of King Alfred the Danes came up the 

 river as far as Haven End. 



One quarter of a mile lower down, after passing an ox-fence 

 which marks the boundary between Great Barwick and the Youngs- 

 bury Home Farm, we come upon a pair of targets, with a marker's 

 mantlet inclosed by an iron fence, and at 700 yards distance a red 

 brick building with two turrets called the armoury ; for more than 

 twenty years this has been the private rifle-range of the owners of 

 Toungsbuiy, and during the greater part of the time the Volunteers 

 from the neighbouring town of Ware, the 9th Herts R.Y. (now 

 D Company 1st Herts Rifle Yolunteers), have practised at this 

 range and held here their annual prize-competition, by leave of the 



