MISCELLANEOUS DENEHOLE NOTES, 1906. 7
Towards the end of May, 1905, at the kind invitation of the
Rev. J. W. Hayes, Vicar of West Thurrock, I again visited
Grays, and Dr. Stewart, of that town, very kindly drove us in
his motor-car to various places of interest in the neighbourhood,
including Hangman's Wood, where we descended into the
deneholes. We also visited the great chalk-pit, known as Grays
Chalk Quarries, west of the road from Grays to Stifford, and
nearly a mile east of the Lion Works Chalk Quarry. Here Mr.
Brown, the manager, was good enough to show us the section
of a small denehole, which had been planed down during the
extension of the chalk-pit northward. Here, again, as the
available evidence has been noted, by Mr. Brown. Mr. Hayes,
and other gentlemen connected with the district, I content
myself with chronicling the discovery.
Purfleet.
I am also much indebted to Mr. Hayes for information about
some curious chambers discovered in the Chalk at Purfleet by
Mr. E. G. Haylock, manager of the Purfleet Chalk Quarry,
during the enlargement of that quarry, east of the railway, in
March, 1906. In a letter dated March 13, 1906, Mr. Hayes says
that some of the side chambers had been cut away by the
workmen before they could be stopped by the manager. He
adds: —
" The chambers occurred in a place where about from 7 to
12 feet (in places) of surface loam had been removed by the
present workmen in order to get at the chalk. They then came
upon a thin roof, 6 inches, of chalk over the passages. It was
thinnest over A, B, and F passages [see ground plan], and the
roof grew thicker as the passages went from F to G. At the
same time the smooth floor sloped downwards from F to G as
if the original workers wanted to get down deeper. The slope
was from one to three feet in the 66 feet passage. The main
passage was about seven feet wide and seven feet to nine feet
high. The side passages branched off as in the diagram, and
were about 14 feet to 16 feet long, evidently terminating in a
semi-rounded roughly-hewn chamber (and not like those at
Bexley or at Hangman's Wood).
" When I arrived the chambers D and E and any others
which had been on that side of the long passage had been cut