FROM STANDON TO THE LEA. 133 



present -writer. In tlio year 184G a plan was agitated for converting 

 the whole of this valley from Standon Lordship to the armoury 

 into a freshwater lake, to be used in conjunction with other lakes 

 on the Ash and the Lea for supplying Loudon with water ; a few 

 years later, before the present branch-line to Buntingford was 

 constructed, a proposal was made to bring the line of railway from 

 Hertford to Buntingford along the valley of the Rib, and at this 

 part of the valley which we are now considering the railway would 

 have crossed the rifle-range on an embankment, and would have 

 passed over the spot where the targets now stand ; happily neither 

 project was carried out, and it may be hoped that cattle will pasture, 

 and the Yolunteers from Ware practise rifle- shootiug at Thunder- 

 marsh for many years to come. A short distance below the 

 armoury, the boundary of Thundridge parish crosses the river, the 

 spot being marked by a cross-cut on an aged ash-tree, below which 

 the boundary-line between the two parishes — Standon and Thun- 

 dridge — is marked by a ditch until it rejoins the river a quarter of 

 a mile lower down ; the probable cause of this deviation of the 

 parish boundary from the channel of the river is the undoubted 

 existence in past times of a water-mill called the Fish House Mill, 

 the site of which is fixed by an old lane which led to it, which has 

 long ago become a water-course, and may even now be called a 

 bourne. 



A few hundred yards lower down on the borders of Toungsbury 

 Park stands the keeper's lodge and kennels, once a farmhouse, 

 named Fabdens, and at this point the river divides into two 

 branches. The right-hand branch, after passing two boat-houses 

 and a bath-house built upon its banks, is artificially widened in 

 that part of its course which is visible from the front door and 

 windows of Youngsbury House. The house was built in 1745 by 

 Serjeant Poole ; it was enlarged in 1770 by Mr. David Barclay, 

 and completed early in this century by Mr. Daniel Giles, an ancestor 

 of the present owner. In a field called " Hilly Field," imme- 

 diately adjoining the shrubbery and arboretum at Youngsbury, 

 are two large tumuli or barrows, which Salmon, in his history, 

 attributed to the Danes. When, however, one of them was opened 

 in 1788 by Mr. David Barclay, the possessor of Youngsbury at that 

 time, it was found to be of Roman origin, as the coins and pottery 

 therein discovered abundantly proved. The second barrow has 

 never been opened. A tesselated pavement was discovered in 

 1736, in close proximity to the barrows. No efforts seem to have 

 been made to preserve the pavement, and, after heavy rain, the 

 tesserae of which it was composed were occasionally to be met with 

 on the surface, within the memory of persons still living. The 

 left-hand branch of the river brings us in less than a quarter of a 

 mile to a chain of moats, four in number, which before the Refor- 

 mation were used to contain fish for consumption on fast-days by 

 the monks of a priory which immediately adjoined Old Thundridge 

 Churchyard, and was used as a summer residence by the monks of 

 Ware Priory. After the Reformation the priory was converted 



