194 IZAAK WALTON'S ASSOCIATION WITH THE RIVER LEA.
Continuing the journey with Venator, after Auceps had taken his
leave here, Walton would follow the road to Cheshunt, and passing
through Wormley and Broxbourne, would reach Hoddesdon to rest
at the appointed rendezvous, the "Thatched House," of which
Piscator says : "I know the Thatched House very well. I often
make it my resting place and taste a cup of ale there, for which
liquor that place is very remarkable."
The ancient site of the "Thatched House," long since de-
molished, has been variously conjectured. The Rev. Moses Brown
in his third edition of "The Complete Angler," published in T772,
supposed it to be seventeen miles from London on the Ware Road,
a thatched cottage once distinguished by the sign of the "Buffalo's
Head," standing at the further side of Hoddesdon on the left of the
road going to Ware, and this identification for want of better
information has been generally accepted by subsequent editors.
There is now, however, good reason to believe that this is a mistake.
Mr. R. B. Croft, of Ware, states 4 that Mr. Charles Whitley, of
Hoddesdon, informed him that the "Thatched House" to which
Izaak Walton referred was situate in the centre of the town of Hod-
4 "Trans. Hertfordshire Nat. Hist. Soc," vol. ii., p. II.