212 MINERAL WATERS AND MEDICINAL SPRINGS OF ESSEX.
one of them has the slightest claim to be regarded as a 'Mineral
Spring'; whereas I can prove that the reputation of this
particular spring has been maintained almost since the time
when Allen wrote. My most reliable informant was an old man,
long since dead, who was born about 1800. He told me many
times that the spring was in high repute when he was a boy and
that he had been told it was equally famous many years earlier.
This would take us back into the reign of George II."
FIG. 3.—THE MINERAL SPRING AT LITTLE DUNMOW ("FELSTEAD")
(from a photograph by Miller Christy).
The spring is on the east side of the road leading from
Felstead Station (which is in Little Dunmow parish) to Felstead
village and about one hundred and fifty yards from the station.
It is now actually in the garden of Priory Lodge (belonging to
Hastings Worrin, Esq.), having been taken in some years ago,
with the strip of road-side waste on which it rises. Its sides
have been bricked and are surrounded by growing ferns and
other greenery (fig. 3).65a The water tastes very markedly of iron,
65a It is shown as "Spring" on the 6-inch Ordnance Map.