164 TWO PREHISTORIC WEAPONS FOUND NEAR EPPING.
The stone implement figured (Fig. 2) was found in 1888 by our member, Mr.
Charles B. Sworder, of Epping, on "Gill's Farm," in Epping Uplands, and was
exhibited by him at a meeting of the Club on January 30th, 1892 (see Essex
Naturalist, vol. vi., p. 17). Its length is 61/4 in., breadth 31/8 in., thickness 2 in.,
and it weighs 2 lb. 2 oz. "It was on a heap of stones gathered off the field,
intended for use in mending the roads. . . . Mr. Sworder could obtain no
information as to when or where it had been found, so the supposition as to its
having been gathered with other stones off the farm can only be accepted as
Fig. 2.—Stone Implement found on Gill's Farm, Epping Uplands, by Mr. C. B.
Sworder.
probable. The material of the instrument is quartzite—a stone not belonging to
Essex nor to the neighbouring counties, although occasionally found with other
stones in gravel-pits. It seems by its high finish to have been of the latest period
of the Neolithic age ; the manner, moreover, in which the hole has been drilled
shows that it was done by a skilled workman. Mr. Worthington Smith says that
he has never found a drilled hammer-stone in the valley of the Lea, but he has
Section to show Formation of the Hole Drilled through the Stone.
seen one preserved in the :school-room of Waltham Abbey, which had been taken
out of the bed of the river. Sir John Evans has given in his work, "Ancient Stone
Instruments of Great Britain," a drawing (p. 518.) of a similar stone found at
Winterborn Bassett, in Wiltshire ; and there is also a drawing of another stone
resembling it found at Sporle, near Swaffham, in Norfolk. . . . The hole for
the handle has been bored from each side, and is conical, the hole in the middle
being much smaller than on the surfaces. How the handle was fixed needs
explanation, on account of the peculiar formation of the hole. If at right angles,
like an adze or garden hoe, it would apparently have required wood to have been
compressed sufficiently to have gone through the small hole in the middle, and