242 CHARCOAL-BURNING IN ESSEX.
South Hanningfield, who has long been a vendor of charcoal and
to whom I am indebted for most of the information I have been
able to collect upon the subject. Near the inn is a hearth upon
which charcoal is occasionally burnt.
Last autumn it was my good fortune to catch a charcoal-
burner at work in the Highwoods near Writtle. The under-
growth had been cleared the year before and the copse poles
cut into three-foot lengths and piled into cords of wood, but the
hearth was far from any path, and, had it not been for the
sunshine filtering through the autumnal foliage of the oaks and
illuminating the smoke from the fire it would have been hard to
find. The hearth was protected from the wind by a screen of
bracken, built up between two oak trees, to a height of eight or
ten feet. In the centre was the burning pile, already three parts
burnt and sunk from a height of six feet, as originally built, to
about four feet high. A pungent blinding smoke rose from the
heap. Now and then the fire broke through the coating of hearth
dust with which the heap was covered, revealing the glowing
"coals" inside. Most of the surface was covered with a fungus-
like growth, apparently a sublimate from the process of
destructive distillation to which the wood was being subjected.
Close by was a shovel and a heap of hearth dust for mending
the apertures made in the coating by the fire breaking through,
a ladder for reaching the middle of the heap, otherwise inacces-
sible, a heap of "brands," i.e., the half-burnt ends of sticks
found at the base of the heap when the burning is completed,
and another of "charm" or small charcoal, both of which are
used to start the next "fire," and lastly a tub for holding water
and a pail for bringing it from the runnel near, the water being
used for "quenching" the fire at the end of the process. A
few yards away was the hut, which served as home to the
charcoal burner when at work in the wood.
As one of the few survivors of an ancient craft, the charcoal-
burner himself was an interesting personality. Skilled in all the
details of the process, versed in the value for its various purposes
of the charcoal produced from the different woods found in the
Essex woodlands, and using the technical phraseology employed
in the last paragraph, he seemed typical of a race of men that the
last century has done much to annihilate. Though having a
cottage at Billericay, he must yet live for weeks at a time beside