128
NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
cup. The water which flows into the basin is supplied by a
quick-running brooklet, which rises near the top of the planta-
tion and runs down the side of the meadow above named. Close
at hand is an hydraulic ram, worked by the stream, which, I
believe, supplies the water to Bourchier's Grange. I first
became familiar with this basin nearly thirty years ago, when I
was told that it was "a petrifying spring," and that, if pieces of
wood were left in it, they would eventually become turned into
stone—a statement which I questioned, pointing out that it was
a case of encrustation merely, due to a limy deposit left by the
water. The chain mentioned is still considerably encrusted by
such a deposit.
Next, as to the site of the closed Witham Spa well (op. cit.,
xv., p. 209): I well remember that, when I was a boy, nearly
forty years ago, we used to count about a dozen paces from a
certain spot and then jump on the surface of the soil, by which
means we were enabled, by the hollow sound, to locate the well
beneath, I believe the well is not closed in with brickwork, as
the writers in question state. When I was a boy, tradition stated
that the well had been merely covered with planks and turfed
over, because some animal had met its death by falling down it.
Such statement was made on the authority of an old inhabitant,
the parent of one of my companions.—Edwin E. Turner,
Grange Hill, Coggeshall, 24th April 1910.
Neolithic Flint Implement at Coggeshall.— The
following is taken from the Essex County Chronicle of 14th May
1909:—
'The neolithic implement, apparently an axe head, recently picked up in the
Vicarage Field, Coggeshall, by Mr. E. Adams, of West-street, Coggeshall, has
been examined by Mr. G. F. Beaumont, late secretary of the Essex
Archaeological Society, who says it is a well flaked neolithic flint implement, of
the unpolished type, dexterously worked to a sharp cutting edge at one end, the
other end being quite rough. It is six inches long and two inches wide at
its cutting end and, from its formation, was well adapted to be grasped
in the hand and used for scraping and cutting purposes, or it might have been
equally well used mounted as an axe or adze. No similar find has been
recorded from the neighbourhood.'