H. GOSSELIN ON THE RIVER ASH. 139 



printed about tho end of tlio last century and the comracnccmcnt of 

 this, among -which I must include those in Newcome's ' History of 

 St. Albans' (1793) and Clutterbuck's ' History of Hertfordshire' 

 (1815), a river is drawn from Hadham Mill to the Stort, and 

 usually figures as far more important than the Ash itself. It is 

 unnecessary to add that nothing of the sort exists, though the 

 tributaries of the two rivers approach very near to each other in 

 Green Tye. The mistake may be excusable in maps of fifty or a 

 hundred years ago, but it is not so at the present day. One of the 

 modern maps in which this error occurs is Cruchley's map of Herts. 



At Hadham Mill Farm the Ash passes under the high road, and 

 immediately afterwards enters the Hundred of Braughing and 

 Parish of Widford. About half a mile further down, on the right, 

 may be seen a large tumulus, 440 feet in circumference, and the 

 remains of a smaller one. Whether these are of Danish or British 

 origin, I will not venture an opinion. A careful excavation of the 

 larger one under an experienced hand might supply us with some 

 clue as to its constructors. In the Blakesware meads, below a 

 wood called Crackneys, are two very strong springs, which were 

 formerly considered by the country-folk to possess certain valuable 

 medical qualities. Near Widford Station the old road, before the 

 making of the Buntingford Eailway, passed through the river below 

 the floodgates. It was either this ford or the one which formerly 

 existed at Hadham Mill, before the present bridge was built, that 

 gave the name to the adjacent village, Wide-Ford, or Widford. 



While speaking of this village, it is impossible to pass over in 

 silence one who has shed a halo on the literature of his time by his 

 extremely pleasing and poetical essays ; and who will not cease to 

 be admired, notwithstanding the cynical abuse of Mr. Carlyle. I 

 refer to Charles Lamb, who spent many a day in this neighbour- 

 hood. It was at Blenheims, some cottages near Hellam Green, 

 where lived K-osamund Gray, the child heroine of one of his most 

 charming stories. At Blakesware, Mrs. Field, his maternal grand- 

 mother, was housekeeper, and Lamb, when a child, was allowed to 

 range over the old deserted house, which he so graphically describes 

 in his " Blakesmoor," one of the 'Last Essays of Elia.' In this 

 he writes in most touching language of his visit in after life to this 

 "Eden" of his childhood. The house, which stood on the north 

 side of the old high-road from Widford to Ware, had been then 

 lately pulled down ; and Lamb found nothing, save a few bricks, 

 to mark the spot where it had stood. He brings his essay to a close 

 with the following sentence: " W^as it for this, that I kissed my 

 childish hands too fervently in your idol-worship, walks and 

 windings of Blakesmoor ! For this, or what sin of mine, has the 

 plough passed over your pleasant places ? I sometimes think that 

 as men, when they die, do not die all, so of their extinguished 

 habitations there may be a hope — a germ to be revivified." This 

 prophetic wish, if I may call it so, has come to pass, and a modern 

 Blakesware has been built only a short distance fi'om the site of 

 the old deserted house of Lamb's days. 



