224
NAVESTOCK IN OLDEN DAYS ;
Putting on one side Dr. Stukeley's unsupported theory that it
signified "The Old Oak by the Temple," we turn to the various
spellings of the name which occur in various documents. Thus we
find Nastok, Nastoke, Nasestocha, Nasingstock, etc., and possibly
Astoca, of Domesday. Morant suggests Nafis or Noefis, without
giving its signification, and stocce, felled timber. Unfortunately, the
name is not referred to in Isaac Taylor's "Words and Places." He
only tells us that stoke or stowe was a common suffix, and signified
a place stockaded with stocks or piles, like a New Zealand Pah.
So much for the name. I pass on to notice one of the most
interesting relics of Saxon times to be met with in our Parochial
History. This is to be found in the ceremony of Watch and Ward,
known throughout the Hundred of Ongar as the Tale, Tallying, or
Cutting, of the Wardstaffe, at a certain period of the year known as
Hocktide. This festival commenced a fortnight after Easter. We
gather from documents of the 13th century that it was one of the
most important business seasons of the year. Thus at this period
Parliaments were wont to assemble, weights and measures were
adjusted, rents and other dues were called in, and the above
ceremony of the Wardstaffe was performed.
An account of this Tale or Tallying of the Wardstaffe occurs
in Blount's "Ancient Tenures" and in many other authors, but
they are all more or less copied from the particulars furnished by
Morant in his "History of Essex."
As the subject is one of great interest, I venture, even at the
risk of wearying you, to repeat the greater part of Morant's descrip-
tion, omitting only such particulars as may be unnecessary to the
subject in hand, and making only a few additions and alterations
suggested by Mr. Singer in "Notes and Queries."10
" This description is taken from an account of the rents of the Hundred in
the time of John Stoner (of Loughton) who had a grant of it in his life time 34
Henry VIII. and died in 1556, and in which grant the above mentioned cere-
monies are said to have been such as have been executed, done, paid, used, and
observed and kept not only in the time of Edwd 3rd and Robert Bruce some time
King of Scots but also in the time of his noble progenitors Kings of England
long before when the Saxons inhabited this realm as manifestly may appear more
at length by ancient records thereof made by Humphrey de Bohun then Earl
of Hereford and Essex and Constable of England, Lord of the said Hundred
dated at Pleashy 10. July xi of same King Edward as also by divers other
ancient and sundrie notable Records, the same remaining written in the Saxon
tongue.
10 3rd Vol., 1st Series, p. 57.