156
NOTES.
the schools, on south side of the Churchyard, numerous tesserae Were thrown up,
leading to the idea that a tolerably entire pavement was struck Upon. Over the
Country from hence to Feeling-Bury, and Kelvedon, coins have frequently been
found, but no care has been taken of them. An old chemist at Kelvedon, now
dead, used to collect them, and at one time had a good-sized bowd-full standing
in his window.
'' When at Coggeshall I think you visited the gravel-pit at Feering where a stone
Coffin was found some months since, and where in the previous year three or four
entire skeletons were found, with remains of some weapons, a horse's bit, and sundry
other articles. The stone coffin was broken by the labourers, probably under the
idea that treasure might be found in it. It contained the bones of a female and
had been filled with plaster, which retained a mould of the body when first
buried, like those at York. Some years since a stone coffin was exhumed in a
meadow at the opposite end of the parish, which contained bones, also pronounced
to be those of a female. A singular legend appertains to the field in which this
coffin was found. Even now the common people avoid this meadow by night.
" It has been thought by some that the true site of 'Canonium' is somewhere
in this vicinity * * * In Rivenhall is Langham Green, with the house in which
Thomas Tusser is said to have been born. There is near a farmhouse, formerly
moated, and at which a good part of two sides of the moat exists, and the remains
of an oak tree, known as 'King Stephen's Oak,' said to have been planted by him
but more probably planted for some special memento in his reign.
" I have often endeavoured to excite some interest in Rivenhall in our Archaeo-
logical Society, but have never succeeded in so doing."—(Col.) W. J. Lucas,
Witham, July—August, 1890.
Bone-Setting in Essex in the Seventeenth Century.—"On the 16th
of August this year, 1687, my sonn went out with his man on settinge ; he rode
on a little old nagg, and the dogg huntinge the hedges more than vsuall, he rode
hastily towards him, and threw his stick at him ; the horse at the instant slid
on the grass or doole,1 it haueinge rained in the night, and fell and threw my
sonn a great way from him, but sittinge loose, and he holding vp his arme, as it
seemes. for all the inside of his sleeue, from his wrist to his shoulder, was all
dirtie, and no dirt oh the outside of his sleeue, and put his right shoulder out of
joint. He was helped by his man on to his horse, and rode home, and sent for a
bone-setter (one Mr. Strut) to Chelmesford, who came about noone, and tryed it
with a coole-staff, which put my son to extreame torture, so that, he cryinge out,
hi; men that held him let goe their hold. They tryed againe, but he was not
able to indure it; so Strut would try with his foot. My sonn was very vnwillinge,
but I preuailed with him to let the surgeon trye ; and he was laid on the ground ;
but Strut sayd my sonn gaue him a kick on his belly, so that he was not able to
set the bone. This so dishartned my sonn, that he sayd he would be a criple all the
dayes of his life rather than indure so much torture againe. But I diswaded all
I could from the resolution, and sayd I would send to London to one Mr.
Pesgrave, who was accounted the best bone-setter of England, who had done
1 "A "Poole or Dowl, signifies a low post of stone or wood used as a landmark. In this
instance it stems to have been applied to a bulk, or strip of grass left unploughed, as a boundary
between two contiguous occupations in an arable common-field. Vide Way's 'Promptorium'
and Forby's 'Vocabulary.' At Newmarket, the post connecting chains set across the race-course
are still called dolls. A large enclosure at Wimbish in Essex, is described in an old survey as
'Doole Field.' "Note by Lord Braybrooke, in Camden Society' ; edition, [Cf. foot-note on
name "Doodle-oak" in Essex Nat., vol. iii., p. 226. Rough, coarse hay, cut on the greensward
at the sides of a road or a path or on the brow of a ditch, is still invariably known as "dooles"
throughout the greater part of Essex.—Ed.1