THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
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on the way at the old deserted Church-yard of St. Mary's, for an admirable
description of which we may again quote Besant :—
" Again, there is another way beyond the Forest which leads along
narrow leafy lanes, the like of which you cannot find outside of Devonshire.
You pass by the way . . . . to look over crumbling old wooden
palings into a strange, deserted graveyard. There is no Church or Chapel
in it or sign of any building ; it is a small square covered with graves,
and containing one or two headstones ; trees stand round it, and it is
covered with long grass ; a wild and ghostly place."
The following quaint epitaph occurs upon one of the few tombstones :
" Farewell vain world I bid adieu to ye,
I value not what thou canst say to me,
For friends I care not or my Foes I fear
All's one to me my Head lyes quiett heare,
Whatt Faults you see in me take Care to shun
And looke at Home theres Something to be done."
The retort contained in the last line, after the professed indifference
to hostile criticism of the first few lines, is charming !
Another tombstone in this churchyard is to the memory of one John
Finch, died 1826. "He was 30 years Ostler at the King's Head, Loughton."
The King's Head was an old coaching house, and this inscription indicates
the relative importance of ostlers in the olden days.
VISIT TO TEMPLE MILLS, LEYTON.—411th MEETING.
Saturday, 5th October 1912.
On this afternoon a visit was made to the Gravel-Pit, Temple Mills,
Leyton, under the guidance of Mr. Hazzledine Warren, F.G.S., Mr. Arthur
Wrigley, Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., and Mr. W. H. Dalton, F.G.S.
The pit was reached by a ten-minute walk from the station, by way of
some roads built upon the edge of the Middle Terrace Gravel, to the
low marshland by the side of the Lea River, in the neighbourhood of
Temple Mills.
After a brief explanation of the relation of the low level gravel to the
adjacent deposits, the party went into the pit. The natural surface here
is at 15 feet O.D. The extensive section exposed shewed (1) 3 ft. of Allu-
vial Clay, subsoil, (2) 13 ft. to 16 ft. of River-gravel, very evenly bedded,
with occasional seams of loam and sand. This gravel rests on the eroded
and uneven surface of a bed of greenish blue loam.
By kind permission of the owner of the pit, two small trenches had
been sunk in this bed. They disclosed a downward extension of at least
5ft. On the top of this bed of green loam, between it and the gravel, is a
thin stratum of tertiary-pebbles in buff loam. The geologists present
agreed that these beds are of Lower Tertiary age, though from their
unusual appearance and the absence of fossils it is difficult to speak very
precisely of them. Mr. Wrigley mentioned that during the previous week
he had seen the basement bed of the London clay at 4ft. in Hackney Wick,
about a mile to the west, and thought that this supported the idea that the
beds in question were of Lower Tertiary age. In the lower part of the
gravel, lenticular patches of greyish clay with plant remains occur. An