100
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
having in fact ceased publication. Other delegates, however, were not
so pessimistic and the general impression seemed to be that a. good deal
could be done by still further co-operation between the Societies, such
as by the exchange of lecturers, etc., and also, perhaps, by the formation
of a National Committee to co-ordinate and encourage the work of the
Unions.
Some Literary and other Associations of Highbeach.—In
October, 1910, Mr. Horace W. Norton, son of a former vicar of High-
beach, showed me a large beech-tree in Epping Forest, near Highbeach
(its girth was 13 feet at five feet from the ground) on whose trunk was
cut a device representing a beautifully formed initial C, with the figures
33 over it, the whole enclosed by an arched frame. Mr. Norton informed
me that the initial was that of the celebrated sculptor, Chantrey, and that
the figures stood for the date 1833.
In that year Sotheby, the minor poet (brother to Mr. Charles Sotheby,
lord of the manor of Sewardstone, who lived at the Manor House, High-
beach) took three friends of his, Francis Chantrey (1781-1841) the sculptor,
Henry Hallam (1777-1859) the equally celebrated historian (and father
to Arthur Henry Hallam (1811—1833) whose early decease inspired Tenny-
son's In Memoriam), and Dr. Halcock, an eminent physician, for a stroll
in the Forest near Fairmead Lodge, where Sotheby himself resided for
some time. All three visitors carved their initials in the beech trunk,
Chantrey, it is said, marking out his fine C with a single bold stroke
of the left hand, at about five feet above the ground. Hallam cut his
initials H H, at about 4 feet 6 inches above the ground, on the opposite
side of the trunk.
In 1910, at the date of my inspection, the above initials were still
perfectly legible, but Dr. Halcock's were indistinguishable; they were
rather deeply incised, and the length of time since they had been cut was
evidenced by the extent to which the pointed-arched frame of Chantrey's
design had opened out, owing to the increased growth in girth of the
trunk in the interval. I took a rough rubbing of Chantrey's device which
I still have. The beech-tree was then decaying, and most of its long limbs
had broken off, some of them lying stretched along the ground for a
length of 50 feet. A few years later the trunk itself had fallen, and I
sought in vain for it and the inscriptions.
The facts relative to the origin of the initials were imparted to Mr.
Norton by three nieces of the poet, the Misses Marianne, Ellen and Cecilia
Sotheby, who showed them to him in or about the year 1886; but they
desired him not to show them to others, except to trustworthy people,
as they feared that publicity might lead some mischievous persons to
deface them, or perhaps to cut them bodily out of the trunk.
Another literary association with Highbeach, according to Mr. Norton,
is that Tennyson's mother had a pew in the old church of St. Paul, which
was demolished long since. It is generally believed that the poet composed
"Ring out, wild bells," whilst listening to Waltham Abbey bells, which
can easily be heard at Highbeach when the wind is in the west.
Percy Thompson.