OBJECTS OF INTEREST. 6i 



whither it had been transported for safety in the 

 stormy times before the Conquest, Greensted lying 

 on the ancient road from London to Suffolk. The 

 incident is thus referred to in an old chronicle of 

 the Abbey of St. Edmund : — " His body was like- 

 wise entertained at Aungre [Ongar], where a 

 wooden chapel erected to his memory remains to 

 the present day." Edmund, who was more of a 

 saint than a soldier, but had the courage to say to 

 his conquerors, the Danes, who offered him his 

 life if he embraced the religion of Odin and gave 

 up half his kingdom, " You may destroy this frail 

 body, but know the freedom of mind shall never 

 bow before you," was bound to a tree and shot 

 with arrows. It is related that, when the church 

 was under repair in 1848, and the ancient timber 

 lay on the ground, the old oak-tree near Eye, in 

 Suffolk, to which tradition had always attached the 

 scene of the martyrdom, fell to the ground, and, 

 being cut up, an arrow-head was found embedded 

 more than a foot in depth in the solid timber, and 

 that the annual rings of growth showed that more 

 than a thousand years had elapsed since it struck 

 there. 



It is a very pretty walk or drive of five miles 

 from Greensted to Epping by Toot Hill and 

 Ongar Park Wood. 



Old Chingford Church, which stands in a 

 dismantled condition about a mile to the south of 

 the present church on Chingford Green, is devoid 

 of antiquarian interest, but is remarkable for its 

 fine position, commanding a striking view over the 

 valley of the Lea into Hertfordshire and Middle- 

 sex, and for the extraordinary trees of ivy, of great 

 age and girth, which hide and protect the moulder- 



