206
THE OLD TRACK FROM LONDON TO EPPING.
By W. C. WALLER, M.A., F.S.A.
THE old main road from London to Epping, as readers of Mr.
Winstone's book ("Extracts from the Minutes of the Epping
and Ongar Highway Trusts," 1891) are aware, ran through Chigwell,
Abridge, and Theydon Gernon. But there was also another route,
available, at any rate, for travellers on horseback, as we learn from
Pepys' Diary. On February 24th, 1659-60, Pepys rode, he says, from
London to Foulmer, within six miles of Cambridge, by way of Ware
and Puckridge. On the 27th he returned, with a companion, by
way of Saffron Walden ; the road thence to Epping, where they
stayed the night, being "pretty good, but the weather rainy." On
the 28th, he continues, "Up in the morning, then to London
through the forest, where we found the way good, but only in one
path, which we kept as if we had rode through a kennel all the way."
The precise force of the word "kennel," as used here, is not quite
easy to determine. If the path had been turned into a sort of
channel, or water-course, by the rain already referred to on the
previous day, Pepys would hardly have called the way good, as he
does in his description of it; although it is probable that what he
thought a good road, we should regard as a shockingly bad one.
Possibly he meant merely a straight, narrow track.
Which way, then, did Mr. Pepys and his friend come on their
journey to London ? The answer seems to be ready to our hands in
an old map, drawn somewhere between 1604 and 1626, which is
preserved among the Hatfield House MSS. (Cecil Papers: Ba., 5/33),
and entitled "Part of New Lodge half walke . . ." (New Lodge,
it may be noted in passing, seems identical with Sotheby's, or, as it
is now called, Fairmead Lodge, near High Beach.) The map in
question shows a nearly straight track running as from Epping
Church direct to Fairmead. It is marked "London way from Eppinge,"
and passes east of "Copthall Parke," "Woodridden Groundes," and
what is marked as "Wilson's Lodge," which apparently stood on the
site of the one already referred to as Sotheby's. North-east of this
lodge, across and beyond Fayrmeade, a house called "Standing" is
depicted. The direction of the track is from north to south, with a
trend westwards, if we follow the orientation of the map itself.
After a comparison with later Surveys, one inclines to come to the
conclusion that Mr. Pepys, on leaving Epping, followed the line of