151
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB—REPORT OF
MEETINGS.
EASTER VISIT TO SAFFRON WALDEN (546TH MEETING).
APRIL 13TH TO 17TH, 1922.
The third Easter excursion of the Club was, like its predecessors, voted
a great success by the Members who constituted the party; this success
was chiefly owing to the untiring care and energy of our Member, Mr. George
Morris, B.Sc., F.R.A.I., who acted as local organizing secretary and also
as conductor to the party.
The visitors, who numbered twenty-one, assembled on Thursday evening
at headquarters, the Rose and Crown Hotel, an ancient hostelry of the
town mentioned in a poetic itinerary of the 17th century, and probably dating
from the 14th century. The oldest part of the present building dates from
the end of the 16th century. By special arrangement the whole party
were accommodated under its hospitable roof or in the immediate neigh-
bourhood.
On Friday morning the party started in brakes from the Hotel at 9.30
and, after passing the old Park and the Lion Gate of The Mansion at Audley
End, crossed the Cam by the bridge erected by Robert Adam, in 1771. Here
the view of the west park, with its stream and the red brick bridge in the
woodland beyond, was enjoyed. A few minutes brought the visitors to
the first alighting place, whence a short walk brought them to a gravel
pit in the river terrace, where they were able to inspect, in situ, a tusk of
the mammoth (Elephas primigenius,) which had recently been uncovered
and left for their inspection. The condition of the specimen, unfortunately,
did not allow its preservation, but photographs were obtained by members
of the party; some 5 feet length of the tusk was exposed, at a depth of 11
feet from the surface. Subsequently the members had an opportunity of
inspecting two molars of mammoth, and teeth of Rhinoceros, from the same
pit, which are preserved in the Museum at Audley End.
Proceeding from here, a halt was called at Uttlesford Bridge, and our
leader pointed out the Myrtle Hill above the bridge, which was known in
old records as the Mutlow (Moot Llaw) Hill, and was probably the meeting
place of Uttlesford Hundred.
At the entrance to Newport a halt was made to inspect the "leper stone,"
a tabular mass of sarsen standing by the roadside. These masses are scattered
over the country-side, increasing in number westward as the county boundary
is approached, and showing, in many cases, a transition to Hertfordshire
conglomerate or "pudding stone," and they are probably the remains of
a Tertiary formation now completely eroded. Tradition assigns the leper
stone as the place where food was left in medieval times for victims of the
disease who had been driven from the community to the waste beyond;
but our leader pointed out that the medieval hospital of St. Mary and St.
Leonard stood opposite this spot and probably gave the name to the stone.
In the wall behind are sections of dressed and moulded clunch which formed
responds and pillars in some medieval building, probably the cloisters of the
aforesaid hospital.
At the entrance to the village the party dismounted and walked through