ANCIENT ENTRENCHMENTS AT UPHALL, NEAR BARKING. 131
Cress is called Nasturtium when he has apprehended the nasi tortium, or nose
twisting, which its bitter flavour was supposed to excite? Who would go on
talking about "Clematis" when he has once associated the plant with the "brush-
wood" which the Greeks called klhmatis? And so on ; for it would be easy to
quote one example after another in which the dry bones of the dead languages
may be revived in the memory of the botanical student, bringing with them inter-
esting scraps of folk-lore, strange old herbalist notions, and quaint fragments of
bygone superstition. With the aid of a Greek lexicon, a Latin dictionary, and a
good etymological English one, I have simply disfigured the beautiful margins
of Sowerby's useful "British Wild Flowers" with notes, in .1 way which I heartily
recommend other students to adopt, and no doubt entomologists might find the
hint worth while remembering in their departments also.—X. Y. Z.
ANCIENT ENTRENCHMENTS AT UPHALL,
NEAR BARKING, ESSEX.
By WALTER CROUCH, F.Z.S. (Vice-President).
[Read on the top of Lavender Mount, April 29th, 1893.]
" I doe love these auncient ruynes :
We never tread upon them but we set
Oure foote upon some Reverend Historie."
THE earliest notice I have been able to find of these old earth-
works is in the Rev. P. Morant's "History and Antiquities of
Essex, 1768," Vol. I., p. 1-2, where he gives the following :
" Berking.—Near the Road leading from Ilford to Berking, on
the north west side of the Brook which runs across it, are the Remains
of an ancient Entrenchment: one side of which is parallel with the
lane that goes to a Farm called Uphall; a second side is parallel with
the Rodon, and lies near it; the third side looks towards the
Thames ; the side which runs parallel with the road itself has been
almost destroyed by cultivation, though evident traces of it are still
discernible. We do not hear, that any other Fortifications or remains
of Antiquity, have been discovered here."
Although I have carefully examined the numerous MSS. of
Jekyll and Holman, now in the British Museum, no mention of a
camp here occurs in any of the seventeen volumes. They form,
however, only a small portion of the materials for the history of
Essex collected by those writers. Gough mentions over forty
volumes of MSS. by Thomas Jekyll, of Bocking (1570-1653).
William Holman, of Halstead (Ob. 1730), extracted largely from
those in his possession, of which he made a catalogue in 1715, a
K 2