76
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
and Henry Mildmay, promising to maintain and defend the true reformed
Protestant religion, the power and privileges of Parliament, and the lawful rights
and liberties of the subjects. In the churchyard was buried, in 1647, John
Saltmarsh, a noted Puritan divine.
A path through a private gate, then lead the party into the portion of the Park
still retained by Earl Cowley, and so through the plantations and past the old stables
to the terrace, where once stood the stately houses of successive owners, kingly
and noble, and where still the daffodils spring up amid the grass. Mr. Crouch
pointed out that not a vestige of the structure now remains ; nothing but a trench
overgrown with grass marks the site of a house reputed to have been one of the
noblest in England, and is the sole monument of a grand estate, destroyed by the
stupidity and profligacy of one man, who, from the enjoyment of a princely revenue
sank to live a fugitive abroad, and to permit his ill-used wife, who had endowed
him with her vast riches, to die of a broken heart three years after the
destruction of her house. A writer who knew the place well says that "in
the latter part of the 18th century Wanstead House still displayed all the splendour
which the Childs, the Tylneys, and the Longs, had lavished on a palace fit for the
abode of gentle and royal blood. Little did I dream that in one quarter of a
century I should see its proud columns prostrate in the dust, its decorations
anihilated, its pictures and sculptures dispersed by the magic of the hammer ; at
one period simply a deserted mansion, at another a refuge for exiled princes ; then
for a brief space polluted by riot and profligacy; and ultimately its lawns and
gardens swept away, its stately groves and avenues remorselessly destroyed, and
myself present at the sad catastrophe. The palace destined to stand for ages, and
on which time had made no inroads, was removed by the approbation of the Lord
Chancellor, when little more than a hundred winters had passed over it; when
its features were just mellowed, its woods and plantations in full luxuriance, and
all around it smiling in perfection."
The Manor of Wanstead is a very ancient one. The name is derived,
according to Lyson's, "from the Saxon words man and stede signifying the
white place or mansion," but later writers suppose it to be a corruption of
"Woden's stede," implying the existence here of "a mound or other erection
dedicated to the wide-spread worship of Woden." Roman remains have been
discovered in Wanstead Park, urns, coins, bricks, tiles, and a mosaic pavement,
all of which were described by Mr. Lethieullier in the "Archaeologia" (vol 1,
pp. 56 and 73). The manor was granted in Saxon times to the Abbey of
Westminster, and the grant was confirmed by Edward the confessor; but at the end
of his reign it passed to the Church of St. Paul's and thence to the Bishop of
London, who held it at the date of the Domesday Book. It then passed into lay
hands, the most notable being the family of the Huntercombes, who held it for
many generations. Under date 1726 is a note in the Church registers recording that
whilst making a vault for Mrs. Mary Pelly (in the chancel of the old Church), an
old square bricked vault was found, containing one body "which is quite wasted
away," and a stone with a piece of brass, and this inscription on it—
Sire Johan Hundercobe Chivaler gist
ici dieu de l'alme e'yt mercy ame.
The matrix of an effigy and inscription still remains in the churchyard, and was
probably the memorial of one of this family. The manor was afterwards held by
one of the Heron family. Giles Heron, who married Cecelia, the daughter of