THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
17
bers were able to secure specimens in abundance. The site was con-
sidered so interesting that subsequent to the Club's visit, on the 18th
of July, an excavation was conducted under the auspices of the Morant
Club, and a report of the same with numerous pictures of the fragments
of pottery has been published in the Transactions of the Essex Archaeological
Society (vol. xiv. pp 49-64).
This is the second pottery-site discovered by Mr. Miller Christy in
the neighbourhood of Mill Green Common, the first having been found
in 1879, some half-a-mile distant, when similar mediaeval fragments were
observed. (Trans. Essex Archaeological Society, n.s. ii., pp. 357-8, 1884, and
Essex Naturalist, I., p. 92.) The site was visited by the Essex Field Club
on two occasions, viz. on nth May 1889 and 25th June 1892 (see
Essex Naturalist III., pp. 142 and 206, and vol. vi., p. 130). In the
Report of the Morant Society above alluded to, full details are given, and
the excavations have "established clearly the fact that, on both the
sites indicated, domestic pottery, chiefly of kinds in ordinary every-day
use, was made in considerable quantities at some period during the
Middle Ages. . . . it seems tolerably safe to refer it approximately
to the end of 15th Century or beginning of the 16th." The facts
indicate a long persistence of the potters' industry in the neighbourhood,
due to the favourable quality of the loam; the significance of the name
of the farm, still known as Potter's Row Farm, long after local memory
of any pottery has gone, is apparent.
Just within the adjoining Wood, is a gravel pit composed of re-con-
structed Bagshot Pebbles, nearly all on end, in a grey clayey matrix,
probably of Glacial age.
In small sand-pits close to Mill Green Common, casts of marine shells
were found in or about 1888 by Messrs. Monckton and Herries, in the
Bagshot Sand, for the first time in our County; similar obscure casts
have since been found in this sand at the Laindon Hills, on one of the
Club's excursions in 1907 (see Essex Naturalist, xv., 1908, p. 145).
A very pleasant walk across the Common then ensued, and by the
High Woods to Bedeman's Berg, the ruin of a small hermitage on Monks
and Barrows Farm; afterwards we were led through Birch Spring (by
kind permission of the shooting tenant, Mr. Sheffield Neave), botanising
by the way, to the road to Blackmore, where the brakes were rejoined,
and the drive to Blackmore (two miles) entered upon.
Returning to Fryerning, the grounds of St. Leonards were entered,
by kind invitation of Mrs. Miller, for the purpose of inspecting
some ruins, believed to mark the site of a small monastic building.
Mrs. Archibald Christy (joint authoress of the recent book on Ingatestone
and the Essex Great Road, with Fryerning) gave the party an account
of the remains on the site.
Fryerning Church, its Norman walls built of local ferruginous
conglomerate interbedded with Roman tiles laid in regular bonding courses
and with quoins of Roman tiles, and containing a famous twelfth century
square Font representing sun, moon, and stars with other designs, was
also visited.
Continuing the drive, "Mill Hurst" was reached, where the Club was
received by Mr. and Mrs. Goulden. While rambling in the grounds