H4 
NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 
the Fyfield Pea becomes entitled to be admitted into the list 
of Epping Forest plants of occasional occurrence, is one of the 
most interesting, and deserves to be noted. 
For a complete review of the known localities for this in¬ 
teresting pea in Britain, a paper by our Member, Mr. Miller 
Christy, F.L.S. (in Journal of Botany, xlviii., 1910), should be 
consulted.— Percy Thompson, Loughton, September 1912. 
The Former Cultivation of Woad in Essex.—When 
writing, seven years ago, on the history of our Essex Industries 1 , 
I knew of no definite record to the effect that woad (I satis tine- 
toria) had ever been cultivated in the County, though there is 
every probability that it has been at some time or other, as it 
is still (or was recently) at Parson Drove, in the adjacent county 
of Cambridge' 2 . 
Recently, however, I have come upon a definite record of 
the fact in a sixteenth-century will preserved at Somerset House. 
John Maynard, a wealthy Colchester “ clothyar ” (or manu¬ 
facturer of woollen cloths) and an Alderman of the Borough, 
died on 6th May 1569 and was buried in St. James’s Church, 
where there still remains a brass to his memory, representing 
him wearing his alderman’s gown and tippet. Clearly, he was a 
“ weyder ” or “ wadman ” (as woad-growers were variously 
called), beside being a clothier ; for, by his will 3 , he appointed 
his wife as his executor, directing her “ to kepe and maineteyne 
my woade howse, with the leades, cesternes, and appurtenances, 
in good reparacon duringe her said naturall lyfe.” 
Yet it seems likely that the woad-growing industry was 
never very wide-spread in the county ; for reference to Mr. W. C. 
Waller’s valuable lists of Essex Field-names reveals 4 but one 
single field-name (Little Woadley, in Alphamstone) which seems 
to commemorate the former cultivation of woad. On the 
other hand, there are many names which commemorate the 
former cultivation of saffron, hops, flax, and other crops now no 
longer grown in the county. It seems possible, however, that 
some of the many Woodleys, Wood Crofts, Wood Fields, and 
the like may be so called through corruption of “ woad ” into 
“ wood.”— Miller Christy, Chignal St. James, Chelmsford. 
1 V. C. H. Essex, ii., pp. 353-5°o: 9 ° 7 - 
2 See E. Corder, in Trans. Norf. & Norw. Nat. Soc., v., pp. 144-156: 1894. 
3 Made 1st Nov 1565 and proved 22nd June 1569 : P. C. C., 15 Sheffeld. 
4 Trans. Essex Archaeol. Soc., n.s. vols. v.-ix. 
