156 QUEEN ELIZABETH'S LODGE, EPPING FOREST.
quent to the date of the repairs alluded to in Mr. Waller's
document, and I think that this is proved by the very different
nature of the plaster in these spaces compared with some of the
old plastering which we uncovered in the inner parts of the
building. I have left with Mr. Cole samples of both these
plasterings. The older sample was taken from the spaces under
the windows on the inside of the building on the first floor.
Some of the oak laths were so old that they fell to dust on being
removed, while the plaster was made of loam and lime,
mixed with hair, most of which appears to be human hair. In
Mr. Waller's document it is reported that the "Walles and .
. . . . about the howse . . . . . to be plastered .
mended with . . . . ." and in the quantities
are "Lyme 3 loades" and "Lome 3 loades." As an experi-
ment, I made up a specimen of plastering with equal quantities
of forest earth and lime, and in colour and consistency it is very-
like the old sample.1 The newer plastering of the spaces subse-
quently filled in is of a very different kind, composed of lime and
hair of oxen. This lime and hair plastering I suppose to be of
much more recent date than the other.
The present chimney, as I stated at the beginning of these
notes, is certainly not original. Clear indications were found in
the first floor room of there having been open spaces between the
upright timbers in front of which the chimney now stands ; for
example, the mortise-holes for the horizontal and vertical timbers
still remain. I think that this chimney was built at the time
the other open spaces between the timbers were filled in, and
the "convenient standings" were transformed into the two
rooms as we now know them.
The fireplace at the reparation of the Lodge some time
subsequent to the date of Mr. Waller's document (the 31st year
of Elizabeth, 1589) was probably outside the building, and was
perhaps that structure referred to as the "chimney of lome" with
oven in the report. We have found no trace of a chimney in
connection with the original building.
Finally it should be observed that the joists upon which
the flooring was laid were so framed as to throw the flooring
highest in the middle of the room, an arrangement perhaps con-
nected with the necessity of draining out rainfall at the time the
sides of the "Standinge" were open to the weather.
1 It may be worth noting that in the quantities an imperfect word occurs". . eare iiij.
bushel t it possible that this refers to the hair employed ?—Ed.