his parish and manor, three miles south-west of London, on the Surrey bank of the Thames, appertained, from a very early period, to the Abbey of St. Peter at Westminster; and is conjectured, by Lysons, to have been therefrom named, in the Conqueror's Survey, Patricsey, which, in the Saxon, is Peter's water, or river; since written Battrichsey, Battersey, and Battersea. It passed to the Crown, at the dissolution of religious houses: in 1627 it was granted to the St. John family, in whose possession the property remained till 1763.
Here, in a spacious mansion, eastward of the church, was born, October 1, 1678, Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, one of the brilliant lights of the Augustan age of literature in England. Here Pope spent most of his time with Bolingbroke, after the return of the latter from his seven years' exile;[79] and his house became also the resort of Swift, Arbuthnot, Thomson, Mallet, and other leading contemporary men of genius. Lord Marchmont was living with Lord Bolingbroke, at Battersea, when he discovered that Mr. Allen, of Bath, had printed 500 copies of the Essay on a Patriot King from the copy which Bolingbroke had presented to Pope—six copies only were printed. Thereupon, Lord Marchmont sent Mr. Gravenkop for the whole cargo, who carried them out in a waggon, and the books were burnt on the lawn in the presence of Lord Bolingbroke. Thenceforth he mostly resided at Battersea from 1742 until his death in 1751. He sunk under the dreadful malady beneath which he had long lingered—a cancer in the face—which he bore with exemplary fortitude; "a fortitude," says Lord Brougham, "drawn from the natural resources of his mind, and, unhappily, not aided by the consolation of any religion; for having early cast off the belief in revelation, he had substituted in its stead a dark and gloomy naturalism, which even rejected those glimmerings of hope as to futurity not untasted by the wiser of the heathens."
Bolingbroke, with his second wife, niece of Madame de Maintenon, lie in the family vault in St. Mary's Church, where there is an elegant monument by Roubiliac, with busts of the great lord and his lady; the epitaphs on both were written by Lord Bolingbroke: that upon himself is still extant, in his own handwriting, in the British Museum: "Here lies Henry St. John, in the reign of Queen Anne Secretary of State, and Viscount Bolingbroke; in the days of King George I. and King George II., something more and better."
The greater part of Bolingbroke House was taken down in 1778. In the wing of the mansion, left standing, a parlour of round form, and lined with cedar, was long pointed out as the apartment in which Pope composed his Essay on Man; it is said to have been called "Pope's Parlour." The walls may still be seen, but they support a new roof, and can only be distinguished from the rest of the building by their circular form. The mansion was very extensive—forty rooms on a floor.
Upon part of the site was erected a horizontal mill, by Captain Hooper, who also built a similar one at Margate. It consisted of a circular wheel, with large boards or vanes fixed parallel to its axis, and arranged at equal distances from each other. Upon these vanes the wind could act, so as to blow the wheel round. But if it were to act upon the vanes at both sides of the wheel at once, it could not, of course, turn it round; hence one side of the wheel must be sheltered, while the other was submitted to the full action of the wind. For this purpose it was enclosed in a large cylindrical framework, with doors or shutters on all sides, to open and admit the wind, or to shut and stop it. If all the shutters on one side were open, whilst all those on the opposite side were closed, the wind acting with undiminished force on the vanes at one side, whilst the opposite vanes are under shelter, turned the mill round; but whenever the wind changed, the disposition of the blinds must be altered, to admit the wind to strike upon the vanes of the wheel in the direction of a tangent to the circle in which they moved.—(Dr. Paris's Philosophy in Sport.) This mill resembled a gigantic packing-case, which gave rise to an odd story, that when the Emperor of Russia was in England, in 1814, he took a fancy to Battersea Church, and determined to carry it off to Russia, and had this large packing-case made for it; but as the inhabitants refused to let the church be carried away, the case remained on the spot where it was deposited.
This horizontal air-mill served as a landmark for many miles round: the proprietor was Mr. Hodgson, a maltster and distiller. It was visited by Sir Richard Phillips in his Morning's Walk from London to Kew, in 1813, who says: "The mill, its elevated shaft, its vanes, and weather or wind-boards, curious as they would have been on any other site, lost their interest on premises once the residence of the illustrious Bolingbroke, and the resort of the philosophers of his day. In ascending the winding flights of its tottering galleries, I could not help wondering at the caprice of events which had converted the dwelling of Bolingbroke into a malting-house and a mill. This house, once sacred to philosophy and poetry, long sanctified by the residence of the noblest genius of his age, honoured by the frequent visits of Pope, and the birthplace of the immortal Essay on Man, is now appropriated to the lowest uses. The house of Bolingbroke become a windmill! The spot on which the Essay on Man was concocted and produced, converted into a distillery of pernicious spirits! Such are the lessons of time! Such are the means by which an eternal agency sets at nought the ephemeral importance of man! But yesterday, this spot was the resort, the hope, and the seat of enjoyment of Bolingbroke, Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Monson, Mallet, and all the contemporary genius of England—yet a few whirls of the earth round the sun, the change of a figure in the date of the year, and the group have vanished; while I behold hogs and horses, malt-bags and barrels, stills and machinery!
"'Alas!' said I to the occupier, 'and have these things become the representatives of more human genius than England may ever witness on one spot again—have you thus satirised the transitory state of humanity—do you thus become a party with the bigoted enemies of that philosophy which was personified in a Bolingbroke or a Pope?' 'No,' he rejoined, 'I love the name and character of Bolingbroke, and I preserve the house as well as I can with religious veneration: I often smoke my pipe in Mr. Pope's parlour, and think of him with due respect as I walk the part of the terrace opposite his room.' He then conducted me to this interesting parlour, which is of brown polished oak,[80] with a grate and ornaments of the age of George the First; and before its window stood the portion of the terrace upon which the malt-house had not encroached, with the Thames moving majestically under its walls.
"'In this room,' I exclaimed, 'the Essay on Man was probably planned, discussed, and written!' Mr. Hodgson assured me this had always been called 'Pope's Room,' and he had no doubt it was the apartment usually occupied by that great poet, in his visits to his friend Bolingbroke. Other parts of the original house remain, and are occupied and kept in good order. He told me, however, that this was but a wing of the mansion, which extended, in Lord Bolingbroke's time, to the churchyard, and is now appropriated to the malting-house and its warehouses."
Sir Richard met with an ancient inhabitant of Battersea, a Mrs. Gilliard, a pleasant and intelligent woman, who well remembered Lord Bolingbroke; that he used to ride out every day in his chariot, and had a black patch on his cheek, with a large wart over his eyebrow. She was then but a girl, but she was taught to look upon him with veneration as a great man. As, however, he spent little in the place, and gave little away, he was not much regarded by the people of Battersea. Sir Richard mentioned to her the names of several of Lord Bolingbroke's contemporaries, but she recollected none, except that of Mallet, whom she said she had often seen walking about in the village while he was visiting at Bolingbroke House.[81]
In the first volume of the Diaries and Correspondence of the Right Hon. George Rose, we find the following entry respecting the treachery of Mallet:—"It appears by a letter of Lord Bolingbroke's, dated in 1740, from Angeville, that he had actually written some Essays dedicated to the Earl of Marchmont, of a very different tendency from his former works. These Essays, on his death, fell into the hands of Mr. Mallet, his executor, who had, at the latter end of his life, acquired a decided influence over him, and they did not appear among his lordship's works published by Mallet;[82] nor have they been seen or heard of since. From whence it must be naturally conjectured, that they were destroyed by the latter, from what reason cannot now be known; possibly, to conceal from the world the change, such as it was, in his lordship's sentiments in the latter end of his life, to avoid the discredit to his former works. In which respect he might have been influenced either by a regard for the noble Viscount's consistency, or by a desire not to impair the pecuniary advantage he expected from the publication of his lordship's works."
Upon this, the Editor of the Diaries, the Rev. Leveson Vernon Harcourt, notes: "The letter to Lord Marchmont here referred to, has a note appended to it by Sir George Rose, the editor of the Marchmont Papers, who takes a very different view of its contents from his father. He gravely remarks, that as the posthumous disclosure of Lord Bolingbroke's inveterate hostility to Christianity lays open to the view the bitterness as the extent of it, so the manner of that disclosure precludes any doubt of the earnestness of his desire to give the utmost efficiency and publicity to that hostility, as soon as it could safely be done; that is, as soon as death could shield him against responsibility to man. Sir George saw plainly enough that when he promised in those Essays to vindicate religion against divinity and God against man, he was retracting all that he had occasionally said in favour of Christianity; he was upholding the religion of Theism against the doctrines of the Bible, and the God of nature against the revelation of God to man."
It is painful to reflect upon this prostration of a splendid intellect; and we are but slightly relieved by Lord Chesterfield's statement, in one of his Letters, published by Lord Mahon, in his edition of Chesterfield's Works (ii. 450), that "Bolingbroke only doubted, and by no means rejected, a future state." We know that Bolingbroke denied to Pope his disbelief of the moral attributes of God, of which Pope told his friends with great joy. How ungrateful a return for this "excessive friendliness" was the indignation which Bolingbroke expressed at the priest having attended Pope in his last moments![83]
It is now, we believe, admitted on all hands that Christianity has not found a very formidable opponent in Bolingbroke, and that his objections, for the most part, only betray his own half-learning. Lord Brougham, whose touching remark we have already quoted, concludes his sketch of Lord Bolingbroke with this eloquent summing up: "Such was Bolingbroke, and as such he must be regarded by impartial posterity, after the violence of party has long subsided, and the view is no more intercepted either by the rancour of political enmity, or by the partiality of adherents, or by the fondness of friendship. Such, too, is Bolingbroke when the gloss of trivial accomplishments is worn off by time, and the lustre of genius itself has faded beside the simple, translucent light of virtue. The contemplation is not without its uses. The glare of talents and success is apt to obscure defects, which are incomparably more mischievous than any intellectual powers can be either useful or admirable. Nor can a lasting renown—a renown that alone deserves to be courted of a rational being—ever be built upon any foundations save those which are laid in an honest heart and a firm purpose, both conspiring to work out the good of mankind. That renown will be as imperishable as it is pure."[84]
Among the memorials of the Bolingbrokes, in Battersea Church, is the altar-window, filled with old stained glass, preserved from the former church, and executed at the expense of the St. Johns. It includes portraits of Henry VII., his grandmother, the Lady Margaret Beauchamp, and Queen Elizabeth; together with numerous shields of arms, showing the alliances of the family.
York House, at Battersea, the mansion of Booth, Archbishop of York, who died in 1480, and bequeathed it to his successors in the See, was mostly taken down some sixty years ago. Archbishop Holgate was one of the few prelates who resided here; he was imprisoned and deprived by Queen Mary for being a married man, and lost much property by illegal seizure. In Strype's Life of Cranmer, p. 308, it is stated that the officers who were employed to apprehend the Archbishop rifled his house at Battersea, and took away from thence 300l. of gold coin; 1600 ounces of plate; a mitre of fine gold, set with very fine diamonds, sapphires, and balists, other good stones and pearls; some very valuable rings; and the Archbishop's seal and signet.
There was long a tradition at Battersea that some ancient walls remaining there were a portion of the residence of the father of Queen Anne Boleyn. It appears from the monument to Queen Elizabeth, in Battersea Church, that the Boleyns were related to the St. Johns. Upon this Sir Richard Phillips contends that at York House, above named, resided Wolsey, as Archbishop of York. "Here Henry VIII. first saw Anne Boleyn; and here that scene took place which Shakspeare records in his play of Henry VIII.; and which he described truly, because he wrote it for Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, within fifty years of the event, and must himself have known living witnesses of its verity. Hence it becomes more than probable, that Sir Thomas Boleyn actually resided in the vicinity, and that his daughter was accidentally among the guests at that princely entertainment. I know it is contended that this interview took place at York House, Whitehall; but Shakspeare makes the King come by water; and York House, Battersea, was, beyond all doubt, a residence of Wolsey, and is provided with a creek from the Thames, for the evident purpose of facilitating in the course by water. Besides, the owner informed me, that a few years since he had pulled down a superb room, called 'the ball-room,' the panels of which were curiously painted, and the divisions silvered. He also stated that the room had a dome and a richly-ornamented ceiling, and that he once saw an ancient print, representing the first interview of Henry VIII. with Anne Boleyn, in which the room was portrayed exactly like the one that, in modernizing his house, he had found it necessary to destroy."
n the twelfth edition of The Ambulator, edited nearly half a century ago by that trustworthy topographer, Mr. E. W. Brayley, under "Epping Forest," we read "a plan for the inclosure of the Forest has been recently projected." And this plan has been slowly but surely put into execution; the inclosures having been so numerous that little remains of this charming forest district, with its verdant glades, secluded dells, thickets, majestic oaks, and sinking vistas of enchanting wilderness and cheerful landscape, to gladden the hearts of the toilers in the vast metropolis.
The Forest remains where it was. Brayley describes it as a royal chase, extending from Epping almost to London, anciently a very extensive district; and, under the name of the Forest of Essex, including a great part of the county. It had afterwards the name of Waltham Forest, which it long since yielded to its present appellation. To this Forest, that of Hainault, which lies to the south-east, was once, it is supposed, an appendage: it was formerly styled "the Queen's Forest," and it possesses more beautiful scenery than, perhaps, any other forest in England. The Crown possesses the whole of the rights over Hainault, and the encroachments are not nearly so numerous here as in Epping Forest, where the Crown has only certain rights—the right of vert and venison. The loss of the picturesque features of wild expanse of woodlands, heath, and mosses; of vast masses of umbrageous tree-tops, and little patches of cultivation—here and there a little town, sending up its fleecy smoke amidst the forest boughs—must excite concern amongst all who take interest in the amusements of the people. How truthfully has the isolated picture of forest life been sung:
"From age to age no tumult did arouse
The peaceful dwellers; there they lived and died,
Passing a dreamy life, diversified
By nought of novelty, save now and then
A horn, resounding through the forest glen,
Woke them as from a trance, and led them out
To catch a brief glimpse of the hunt's wild rout—
The music of the hounds; the tramp and rush
Of steeds and men;—and then a sudden hush
Left round the eager listeners; the deep mood
Of awful, dead, and twilight solitude,
Fallen again upon that forest vast."
The Forest remains where and as it was, save that invasions on the waste, and encroachments, have from time to time greatly restricted its extent; not so the city, for that has advanced, and meets the old liberty at half-way. Now the metropolis reaches to Bow, or nearly to Stratford, where the Forest commences; and there the road divides, one branch leading northward to Chigwell, the other eastward to Romford. In extent it reaches five miles from Ilford on the south, nearly to Abridge on the north, by four miles from Woodford-bridge on the west, to Havering-at-Bower on the east. Were the whole area of this scope one continuous chase, there would be some 12,000 acres; but from the numberless excisions from, and appropriations of the liberty, the contents of the whole do not at present amount to 4,000 acres.
It appears that an Act of Parliament was passed (the 14th and 15th Vict.) for the disafforesting and inclosure of Hainault Forest; that on the 24th August, 1851, a commission was formed for the purpose: and summary execution was done upon 14,000 oak-trees, which had stood unmolested for centuries. This was preliminary to the utter clearance, parcelling out, and selling off of the whole domain.[85]
The signal advantage of Epping Forest over all other open spaces is that in it alone thousands can at the same time enjoy the country in its natural aspect in that privacy without which the country, as such, is no enjoyment at all. That the inhabitants of London highly appreciate this advantage is shown by the fact that thousands every fine day in the year pass by the Parks that are provided for them near their own doors, and travel weary miles to reach the fragment of the Forest that is left to them.
The case of Epping Forest is matter of dispute. There is an opinion entertained by persons whose opinions command respect that the lords of the several manors included within the precincts of Epping Forest are entitled to call for an inclosure of the portions of the Forest in which they are respectively interested, whenever they please; and that the Crown is not justified, on the ground of public advantage, in setting up its rights as an impediment to such inclosure.
The case as between the lords of the manor, the Crown, and the public appears to be this:—The Forest comprises the wastes of certain manors, over which, from time immemorial, the lords of these manors had the accustomed rights of pasturage; the Crown had the forestal right of keeping deer in them, and for that purpose of keeping them uninclosed: and the general public had the common right of going upon them as uninclosed land. The lords of the manor are in the actual enjoyment of all the rights of property they ever had in the Forest, but they desire to acquire a species of property in it which has never hitherto belonged to them, and which is inconsistent with other existing rights. The right of the public to go upon the Forest land while it is in its present open condition has become one of transcendent importance; and the real question presented to the Crown is whether it shall cede its rights for the benefit of half-a-dozen persons who desire to acquire a valuable property to which they have no present title, or maintain them for the benefit of the large proportion of the British people who live in London and its vicinity. In short, it appears that the rights of the Crown and the public have not been maintained in Epping Forest, because the Government would not incur the expense of litigation.
To show how persons sometimes defeat the cause which they advocate, it may be mentioned that at a meeting held at the Bald-faced Stag, Buckhurst-hill, upon this Forest question, several speakers expatiated at great length on the injustice of excluding the working classes of the east end of London from the rural enjoyments of the Forest, owing to the inclosures made by the lords of the manor and other parties. It was, however, shown at the meeting that two gentlemen of the Committee had inclosed a very large portion of the Forest, parts that are the most picturesque and that were most resorted to by the London holiday folks; but, alas! no more Forest remains in the once sylvan neighbourhood of Buckhurst-hill.
The reduction of Epping Forest began in the reign of King John, and was confirmed by Edward IV., when all that part of the Forest which lay to the north of the highway from Stortford to Colchester (very distant from the present boundaries) was disafforested. The Forest was further reduced; but the metes and bounds of it were finally determined in 1640. The office of Chief Forester for Essex was deemed highly honorary, and was generally bestowed on some illustrious person. The stewardship was also usually enjoyed by one of the nobility. It continued in the De Veres, Earls of Oxford, for many generations; but was taken from them by Edward IV., for their adherence to the Lancastrian party. On the accession of Henry VII., it was restored by grant to John, Earl of Oxford. The steward had the power to substitute a lieutenant, one riding-forester, and three yeoman-foresters, in the three bailiwicks of the Forest. He also had many lucrative privileges, and was Keeper of Havering-at-Bower, and of the house and park trees.
We remember, many years since, to have visited the Forest for the sake of inspecting the house known as Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge, which stands about a mile west of the main road to Epping; and the most direct road to which, in the heart of the Forest, we found to be from about midway between the Bald-faced Stag Inn and the village of Loughton. The view from this point is of surpassing beauty and extent; whilst it is no wide stretch of conjecture to set down the ancient forest as nearly covering the entire county. The towns, villages, and seats which now stud the district, and the roads which intersect the woody waste, may have been the work of a few centuries; inns and lodges would be among the earliest buildings for retainers, whose business it was to defend and preserve this royal chase, for the privilege of hunting here was confined to the Sovereign and his favourites. Again, those who flocked thither, with such privilege, would well repay the hospitalities of an inn, and "hosteller," even were we to leave out of the reckoning the boon companionship of foresters, and the debauched habits of marauders, who fattened by the infringement of the royal privilege, in wholesale deer-stealing for the London markets. We were told that in Epping churchyard is the tombstone of a follower, whose business it was to convey venison to the metropolis, but who, in one of his midnight returns, was shot by an unknown hand; the almost headless body being found on the road next morning.
The Lodge stands in the parish of Chingford,[86] about one mile from the village, and thus served the purpose of a manor-house, the courts being held here. Chingford Hall, the actual manor-house, is situated a short distance hence; but Mr. Lysons thinks it probable that the site of the ancient manor-house was that of the present Lodge. The manor was purchased in or about 1666, by Thomas Boothby, Esq., from whose family it descended by marriage to the Heathcotes. The Lodge consists of the main building, a basement, and two floors,—and a building abutting upon it, chiefly occupied by the spacious staircase. The exterior has little of the air of antiquity comparatively with the interior. The basement is principally the kitchen, where the large projecting chimney, the olden fire-dogs, and cheerful wood fire, reminded us of "the rural life," if they carried us not back to
"Great Eliza's golden time."
The staircase is of surprising solidity: its width is about six feet; it is divided by six landings, with four stairs between each, and each stair or step consists of a solid oak sill. The first floor contains two chambers, one hung with tapestry in fine preservation, and the chimney opening has a flattened arch. The height of the first floor and basement has been sacrificed to the story above, which entirely consists of a large room, or hall, entered from the staircase by a low, wide doorway. The dimensions of the hall we take to be twenty-four feet wide, and forty-two feet high; its height reaches to the open roof, the tiles of which are merely hidden by rough plaster; and the sides of the room consist of massive timbers, filled in with plaster, and originally lit with four windows. The roof-tree, we should add, is supported by timbers which spring into two pointed arches, and render it probable that the original roof was of a different form as well as material from the present one. In this apartment were held the manorial courts; and on the plain plaster walls hung three large-sized whole length portraits of one of the Boothbys (lords of the manor), in infancy, accompanied by his brother, in boyhood, and in manhood. The timbers of the staircase sides and roof are massive, and spring into arched frames; and all the doorways in the building have flattened arches.
Tradition reports the Lodge to have been a favourite hunting-seat of Queen Elizabeth. It was occupied, at the time of our visit, by the bailiff of the manor, who had lived there twenty years, and his father occupied the Lodge half a century before him. To the tradition was added, that Elizabeth was accustomed to ride upstairs on horseback, and alight at the door of the large room, upon a raised place, which is to this day called the horse-block. We confess the story savours of the marvellous; but the width and solidity, and many landings of the staircase, are in its favour; and, not many years previously, a wager of ten pounds was won by a sporting gentleman riding an untrained pony up the assigned route of the chivalrous Queen.
There are circumstances related which render it more than probable that the Lodge was fitted up for the reception of Elizabeth. That the Queen was extremely fond of the chase, and hunted at an advanced age, is a well-established fact. That she hunted in Epping Forest is nearly ascertained; for the Earl of Leicester once owned Nakedhall Hawke, or old Wansted House, in the neighbourhood: it is mentioned in a document of Richard II., and seems to have been the manorial residence. Here, in May 1578, Leicester entertained Queen Elizabeth four or five days, and one of the rooms in the mansion was called the Queen's. Again, in this mansion was solemnized Leicester's marriage with the Countess of Essex, Sept. 20, 1578, the Queen being then on a visit to Mr. Stonard, at Loughton, in the Forest; and old Wansted House is introduced in the background of a picture of Queen Elizabeth, in the collection at Welbeck.
Of the Queen's hunting the hart in Enfield Chase we have this circumstantial record. Twelve ladies in white satin attended her on their ambling palfreys, and twenty yeomen clad in green. At the entrance to the forest she was met by fifty archers in scarlet boots and yellow caps, armed with gilded bows; one of whom presented to her a silver-headed arrow winged with peacock's feathers. The splendid show concluded, according to the established laws of the chase, by the offering of the knife to the Princess, as first lady on the field; and her taking say of the buck with her own fair and royal hand.
In addition to the Hunting Lodge, we found other memorials of the age of Elizabeth in the neighbourhood. Thus, the hill, or point, when we left the main road to cross the Forest to the Lodge, is to this day remembered as Buckhurst-hill, as may be reasonably supposed, from Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, the accomplished poet, and favoured flower of Elizabeth's court.
In conclusion, the Londoners have lost the Epping Hunt, and the "Common Hunt" no longer goes out; and the old Pumpmaker's Fair, which originated in a wayzgoose of beans and bacon, is no longer held around the oak of Fairlop; but let us not lose the Forest itself; else, of what service is our railway gain?
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e have, says Sir Richard Colt Hoare, in his Ancient Wiltshire, "undoubted proof from history, and from existing remains, that the earliest habitations were pits, or slight excavations in the ground, covered and protected from the inclemency of the weather by boughs of trees or sods of turf." These dwellings usually formed villages, conveniently situated near streams or rivers, the habitations of the lords of the soil before the Roman occupation. Amongst the moorlands and wilds of Yorkshire, in spots where the spade and plough have not been in operation, upwards of forty British villages were described and inspected by Dr. Young, of Whitby. Many early dwellings are likewise to be met with in other parts of England; some sunk in the chalk, where cultivation has not entirely obliterated them, which is the case in the eastern counties. The large tumuli and barrows which remain, pertain to a much later era of our history; generally to the Roman and Saxon periods, when the use of bronze and iron became known.[87]
At a recent meeting of the Norwich Archæological Society, the members made an excursion to Brandon and neighbourhood, and at Grime's Graves Mr. Manning read a paper on the Graves, in which he maintained that this irregularly-shaped cluster of holes are ancient British dwellings, forming the remains of an ancient town. Each hole was lined with a layer of stones, and, when inhabited, roofed over with boughs or grass. The term "graves" means pits or holes, and the name "Grime's" was probably derived from "Græme," the Saxon for witch, or rather for anything supernatural. Thus the term "Grime's Graves" meant "Witches' Work." After leaving Grime's Graves, the party examined the Devil's Dyke, a long and extensive fosse and bank, supposed to have been made by the Ancient Britons for military purposes.
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The Saxon Hall for feeding retainers was mostly built of wood and thatched with reeds, or roofed with wooden shingles. The fire was kindled in the centre, and the lord and "hearth-men" sat by while the meal was cooked.
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The late Mr. Rickman, the antiquary, was of opinion that Abury and Stonehenge cannot reasonably be carried back to a period antecedent to the Christian era. In an Essay communicated by him to the Society of Antiquaries in 1839, after tracing the Roman road from Dover and Canterbury, through Noviomagus and London, to the West of England, Mr. Rickman notices that Silbury is situated immediately upon that road; and that the avenues of Abury extend up to it, whilst their course is referable to the radius of a Roman mile. From these and other circumstances, he argues that Abury and Silbury are not anterior to the road, nor can we well conceive how such gigantic works could be accomplished until Roman civilization had furnished such a system of providing and storing food as could supply a vast multitude of people. Mr. Rickman further remarks, that the temple of Abury is completely in the form of a Roman amphitheatre, which would accommodate about 48,000 Roman spectators, or half the number contained in the Colosseum at Rome. Again, the stones of Stonehenge have exhibited, when their tenons and mortices have been first exposed, the working of a well-directed steel point, beyond the workmanship of barbarous nations. Stonehenge is not mentioned by Cæsar or Ptolemy, and its historical records commence in the fifth century. On the whole, Mr. Rickman is induced to conclude that the era of Abury is the third century, and that of Stonehenge the fourth, or before the departure of the Romans from Britain; and that both are examples of the general practice of the Roman conquerors to tolerate the worship of their subjugated provinces, at the same time associating them with their own superstitions and favourite public games.