THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB. 55
down from town in ideal weather, warm, but with a cool breeze to temper
the heat. Here they were met by Mr. Hubert Collar, the curator of the
Saffron Walden Museum, who had organised the meeting, and by Mr.
Hindle, science-master at the Friends' School, who had come to place his
local knowledge at the service of the botanists of the party.
A visit was first paid by a majority of the visitors (the botanists pre-
ferring their own interests) to Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Snow's Home School of
Crafts at Trout Hall, in Wendens Ambo village, a handweaving industry
established some ten years since by Mr. and Mrs. Snow, who kindly gave
demonstrations of the various processes involved. Mr. Snow explained
that he had studied vegetable dyes while living in Surrey and so deter-
mined to establish a home-industry on a commercial basis to compete with
machine-made factory produce : as a result the present business had been
gradually built up. The wool used was all bought from local farmers, was
washed in the village stream, spun, dyed and woven—all these processes
being carried out in Wendens Ambo, except that a proportion of the
spinning had to be done in Scotland on account of insufficient local labour.
Mrs. Snow demonstrated the actual spinning with a wheel and emphasised
the superiority of homespun material over machine spun, as ensuring a long
staple. The dyes used were derived from lichens, walnut skins, onion skins,
madder, "weld" (i.e., foxglove) and also from such foreign materials as
indigo and cutch.
Leaving this interesting example of a flourishing village industry, after
thanking Mr. and Mrs. Snow for their reception, the visitors devoted a
few minutes to a casual inspection of the parish church, which presents
some good illustrations of the use of Roman bricks by the Norman builders
of the West Tower. The grave in the churchyard of William Nicholson, a
native of the parish, who served as a midshipman under Nelson and sur-
vived until 1886, dying at the advanced age of nearly 104, was noted with
curious interest.
Rejoining the errant botanists, the whole party next proceeded to the
Ring Hill, a prehistoric hill-camp of some 161/2 acres in extent, permission
to visit which had kindly been given by Lord Braybrooke. The camp is
thickly overgrown, but long alleys have been cut, bordered by tall clipped
box and yew which had a strangely old-world appearance and spoke
eloquently of the chalky nature of the soil.
Lunch was taken by the party seated around the summer-house, de-
signed as an Ionic Temple, which crowns the highest point of the camp
and from whence a magnificent view is obtained of Audley End and Park,
with the tower of the Friends' School at Saffron Walden beyond.
This part of the day's progress afforded opportunity to search for
wild plants, of which our botanists zealously availed themselves, with the
result that 120 species of wild flowers were recorded, including Viola iricolor
Geranium pyrenaicum, Alchemilla arvensis, Sherardia arvensis, Campanula
(Legousia) hybrida, Symphytum tuberosum, Salvia verbenaca, Lamium
amplexicaule and Plantago media.
The vehicles were regained at the foot of the Hill and the visitors made
their way to Saffron Walden, where the Museum and Castle were inspected
under Mr. Collar's guidance. At the Museum, Mr. Collar mentioned that
the institution owed its origin to a natural history society which was
formed in Saffron Walden just a hundred years ago, this year the centenary