246 REPORT ON THE DENEHOLE EXPLORATION
much to be desired.8 Dr. Robert Plot, in his "Natural History of
Oxfordshire," published in 1705, remarking on the probable existence
of mines of the precious metals in Oxfordshire, says that there may
once have been a mine in a certain locality in that county though the
site may have been lost like "the gold mine of Cunobeline in Essex,
discovered again temp. Henry IV., as appears by the king's letters of
Mandamus, bearing date May 11th, An. II., Rot. xxxiv., directed to
Walter Fitz-Walter concerning it, and since then lost again." And
according to a writer in the "Cambrian Register," the gold mines in
Orsett, East Tilbury, and some of the neighbouring parishes, were
actually worked at the commencement of the 15th century with some
degree of success by the royal favourite above mentioned. There
Fig. 7.—The ancient Deneholes at Tilbury, Essex ; from Camden's "Britannia" (1610).
can be little, if any, doubt that the "gold mines" of East Tilbury
were the deneholes known to exist there, Camden's figures of two
of which were reproduced and described in the Essex Naturalist
for Sept., 1887 (vol. i. page 188), and are again shown here, Fig, 7.
And the "gold mines" of Orsett can hardly fail to be our Hang-
man's-Wood pits, which are partly in the parish of Orsett and partly
in Little Thurrock. The above particulars have a special interest
for us here, as they show that in the time of Henry IV. these dene-
holes were traced back by tradition to the most powerful of the
8 For some account of the literature of Essex deneholes see Journ. Proceedings E. F. C.
vol. iii. pp. 10—34.