THE ESSEX NATURALIST. 
156 
above the other, the third in the western wall; these foot-holes 
were flat-bottomed, and about 8J inches wide. 
The total length of this dene-hole, from north-west to south¬ 
east, was about 25 feet, and the height of the several chambers 
about 10 feet in each case. The depth of the recesses was about 
10 to 11 feet and the width 5 to 5J feet, except in the case of the 
shallow northern terminal chamber, which was only 6 feet in 
depth, for reasons already suggested. 
The visitors were shown a letter S and a date, said to be 
1220, scratched upon the chalk wall of the south-eastern terminal 
chamber (in a curiously convenient position !), and the workmen 
asserted that this inscription had certainly not been done since 
the discovery of the pit. The writer was, however, sufficiently 
sceptical to examine the scratched numerals minutely with a 
pocket-lens, when not only could the absolute freshness of the 
white scratchings in the very slightly stained face of the chalk 
be detected, but also the apocryphal 1220 could be deciphered 
as being in reality 1920 ! It is worth putting this on record at 
