THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
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rebuilt in 1771, and again in 1861. The font was formerly in the chapel at
Upminster Hall, but has been newly carved. The old square tower, probably as
old as the time of King John, was damaged by lightning in 1638, and refaced in
1861. It is roofed with lead-covered eaves, then some weather-boarding, sur-
mounted by a short shingle spire and vane, and is altogether about 79 feet high.
The woodwork inside, and the bell framings in parallel lines on the side of the
wall are curious, and bear evidence of early date.
The porch was also rebuilt in 1861, and occupies the same position as the old
one, which was of red brick of Henry VIII. date, with cusped panels and small
buttresses above on each side of the doorway, and a rose above.
The north window of the chapel contains the armorial bearings of the older
lords of the manor of Gaines—the Engaines, D'Eyncourts, and Lathams—and
there are several brasses with effigies remaining. There are also monuments in
the nave to the Cox's of Harwood Hall, and others ; in St. Mary's Chapel to the
Esdailes, of Gaines, 1793—1838 ; and in the north aisle a series of monuments to
the members of the Branfill family, of Upminster Hall, whose vault is beneath
St. Mary's Chapel. There are memorials of some of the former rectors in the
churchyard; and on the pathway where the two yew avenues meet are the
gravestones of William Braund of Hacton House, Benjamin and Mary Branfill,
and other connections of the family.
Although the celebrated Dr. Derham, F.R.S., canon of Windsor, was rector
from 1689 to 1735, and was buried in the chancel, no gravestone or memorial of
any kind has been erected ; but Mr. Crouch pointed out the little door high up
on the south side of the church spire by which he obtained access to the platform
or staging which he used as a local observatory for his astronomical and meteoro-
logical researches.
On the kind invitation of the rector the party then passed into the Rectory
grounds and house, which was rebuilt by Rev. Samuel Bradshaw about 1765, and
is in the form of the letter H with a central hall. The old rectory was moated,
but only a pond now remains as a vestige of this environment.
After an expression of thanks to the rector for his courtesy, the members pro-
ceeded through the yew avenue and across the road to
High House, where Dr. Derham resided during the last forty-six years of his
life, the old rectory being too dilapidated to live in. Assembling on the lawn
under the old cedar, a few remarks were made by the conductor on the house and
its history, and the cedar, eighteen feet in girth, which still towers high, but which
was shorn of its grand limbs by the storms of last winter. A former owner, Dr.
Tabrum, had his coffin made from one of the branches Lord Byron visited this
house when his friend Major Howard was living here, and wrote in it several of
the stanzas of "Childe Harold."
In the absence of Prof. Boulger, F.L.S., a paper of his on "The Life and
Works of Dr. Derham" was read by Prof. Meldola, F.R.S., who supplemented
it by reference to some interesting letters which passed between Dr. Derham
and his friend Dacre Barrett Lennard of Belhus (some four miles south), which
are preserved there, and show how his friend helped him in his experiments on the
velocity of sound. (See Wilson's "Upminster.") Prof. Boulger's paper will be
published in the Essex Naturalist.3
3 It may be noted that Dr. N. Salmon, in his "History and Antiquities of Essex" (1740),
refers to the collections of Dr. Derham, and says that "they have been very useful in this account
of Upminster, as well as those of the late Mr. Champion Branfill." Quaere, where are these
collections now?