190
AN EPISODE IN THE HISTORY OF THE RIVER LEA.
2. From a Spring in the Cutting.
By Dr. P. F. Frankland, July, 1889. Communicated by Mr. W.
T. Foxlee.
In parts per 100,000.
Slightly turbid ; palatable.
AN EPISODE IN THE HISTORY OF THE RIVER
LEA.
By W. C. WALLER, M.A., F.S.A. (Hon. Treasurer).
[Read at the Field Meeting on the Lea, June 27th, 1896.]
AMONG that wonderful collection of documents known as the
State Papers (Domestic Series), is one1 to which my attention
was directed some long time ago by my acute and ever-helpful friend,
Mr. G. H. Overend, of the Public Record Office. I made a note of
it then, and now propose to put before you a brief narrative derived
from a full transcript which I have made within the past two days.
I mention the time that you may excuse my not having worked the
matter out more in detail before bringing it forward. With these few-
prefatory remarks let us pass back into the "spacious times of great
Elizabeth."
On March 6th, in the year 1594, Sir John Popham, then L.C.J.,
and Sir Edmond Anderson, L.C.J. of the Common Pleas, sat at
Serjeants' Inn, in Fleet street, to hear proofs for the rights of the
passage with barges on the river of "Ley" from Ware to the
Thames, with the usage thereof for nearly twenty years then last past.
The origin of this solemn sitting is to be sought in a riot
committed at a lock and bridge, known respectively as the Old
Lock, or the Nether Lock, and the High Bridge, which latter was
1 S.P.D. Eliz. 248, fos. 265-270.