HILLS : E. G. VARENNE, OF KELVEDON, BOTANIST. 295
was almost wholly agricultural, as it is still. Of other industries,
there were few, either in the town itself or its vicinity, the
chief of them being corn-milling. Up to the time when Varenne
went there, the place had been mainly what was called then a
"thoroughfare town"; that is to say, it existed largely on
FIG. 2.—HOUSE IN THE HIGH STREET AT KELVEDON, INHABITED FOB MANY
YEARS BY E. G. VARENNE (1811-1887), BOTANIST.
the road-traffic, consisting of the innumerable coaches and
carriers' waggons which passed through it along the great coach
road, on their way to and from London, Romford. Brentwood,
Ingatestone, Chelmsford, Colchester, Harwich, Ipswich, and
elsewhere. But. soon after the time of Varenne's settlement
there, all such traffic was put an end to, in the "Forties" and