FROM STANDON TO THE LEA. 135 



above "W^'iulcsmill no less tlian four disused gravel-pits (two of tliem 

 planted with timber and underwood) and two gravel-pits in use 

 now — one close to new Thundridge church and one by the keeper's 

 lodge at Fabdens. Proceeding liigher up the valley he would find 

 a chalk-pit near the annoury-buildiug in Thunderinarsh ; a clialk- 

 pit and gravel-pit (both in use) at the foot of the hill on which 

 stands Sawtrccs Farm ; at Little Earwick, again, a cbalk-pit and 

 gravel-pit (both in use) ; near Great Barwick an ancient gravel-pit 

 called the Herring Dell ; and a quarter of a mile below Standon 

 another gravel-pit of great size, which has only been worked out in 

 the course of the last twenty years : or, to sum up, in less than five 

 miles he would notice six disused gravel- pits, besides three chalk- 

 pits and four gravel pits in use at the present time. Immediately 

 after passing the homestead of Little Barwick Farm, the new road 

 from Barwick Ford to Kettle Green, in Great Hadham parish, 

 ascends the hill by a cutting, of which the inclination is 1 in 30. 

 Mr. W. H. Penning, F.G.S., has drawn for the Geological Survey of 

 England and Wales a section of this cutting, which may be thus 

 described : — At the lower end of the cutting glacial drift rests 

 directly on the chalk : the drift consists of light-coloured sand, 

 "with a thin layer of gravel between it and the chalk ; 180 feet 

 above the lower end of tlie cutting the chalk dips below the level 

 of the roadway, and the section consists first of glacial drift, i.e. 

 light-coloured sand, with a layer of gravel below it, and, for fifty 

 yards after the sand ceases, of gravel alone. The next 130 yards 

 of the section is thus described by Mr. Penning: "Gravel, with 

 intercalated patches of sand, and a contorted bed of boulder-clay." 

 At the upper end of the cutting the section consists of gravel and 

 sand. The cutting exceeds 500 feet ia length, and was made in 

 the year 1871. 



Any one to whom trees were a greater object of interest than the 

 soil of the valley, would notice first the long avenue of elms leading 

 to old Thundridge Church, and the wide-spreading hickory-trees on 

 the former lawn of Thundridge Bury. By the side of one of tlie 

 moats he would find one wych-elm and three or four common elms, 

 to which no date later than the Reformation can be assigned ; and 

 in Youngsbury Park he would find more than one plane-tree 

 planted by the water-side, a group of abeles which date from the 

 last century, and one pollard-oak believed by calculation made from 

 its girth to have stood for eight centuries whilst the E,ib has flowed 

 by within one hundred yards of its trunk. 



The fish whose names are given in the following list may on any 

 day be taken from the waters of the llib : trout, jack or pike, 

 perch, chub, dace, gudgeon, minnows, eels ; and occasionally tench 

 and roach, and more rarely carp, have been captured. In all, 

 eleven species of fish inhabit the waters of the Rib. In 1856 a 

 trout weighing 8 lbs. was caught near Youngsbury. Pike have 

 been taken of 17 and 22 lbs., and one caught with rod, line, and 

 artificial bait, by the late Mr. Daniel Giles the younger, weighed 

 27 lbs. 



