xxxii
Journal of Proceedings.
curiosity he had intended for his museum, on his arrival on firm ground
he found it battered to pieces. This expedition into these subterranean
regions totally failed in its intended effect; it did not decide the con-
troversy relative to the original intention of the Deneholes." ("E. W."
loc. cit. p. 55.)
In the 'Building News' for February 1st, 1867, is a paper on "British
Caves on the Banks of the Thames," in which the writer repeats the
ordinary information, and describes a visit made to the Denes in
"Hairyman's (sic) Wood." He remarks that only five shafts were then
open, but that at least twice that number had been accessible within the
last few years. The party descended in the usual way, seated on a cross-
stick attached to a stout rope, and they appear to have explored two of
the holes with some care, but the writer confesses that he discovered
" nothing which could give a clue to the purpose for which these singular
excavations were made, or to the date of their formation, unless the
pick-marks which we saw indicated that they were dug out, not with
flint or bronze celts of the usual shapes, but with a metal tool like a pick
of later date than the age of celts."
At a meeting of the Royal Archaeological Institute on February 5th,
1869 (' Archeological Journal,' vol. xxvi., 191), Mr. R. Meeson, F.S.A.,
F.G.S., exhibited antiquities from Grays Thurrock, and made some
remarks which are well worth attention :—
" The neighbourhood of Grays and the adjacent parish of Tilbury are
full of remarkable vestiges, claiming careful examination. Mr. Meeson
expressed a desire to invite the attention of archaeologists to the pre-
historic traces mingled with those of successive occupation in the Roman
and subsequent periods, occurring in the neighbourhood of his residence
at ' Duvals.' Among these he especially adverted to the deep cavities
known as "Dane-holes" existing in every field where there is a sub-
stratum of chalk, and, he believed, originally formed in obtaining that
substance for lime, as indicated by the frequent traces of burning that
occur close to them ; there seems, however, to be no doubt that the pits
were afterwards used for other purposes, for burial and concealment.
One, that he had opened, contained a large number of Roman urns, but
the roof had fallen in and crushed them. In the debris of bones and
chalk, Mr. Meeson found one of the verticilla before mentioned." [" Two
verticilla or spindle-whorls—one of them lead and the other chalk—
found in an urn with the armlets and bones supposed to be those of a
female."]
In a subsequent communication to the Rev. Mr. Palin (printed in
' Stifford and its Neighbourhood,' p. 41), Mr. Meeson thus alludes to these
specimens:—
"A curious feature of the district is the occurrence of the Dane-holes,
as they are called by the country people, and of which antiquarians form
such different ideas. I believe they are simply excavations to obtain
chalk for lime-burning ; subsequently, however, used for other purposes,
as for burial in the Roman period. I have opened one full of Roman
burial vases crushed by the fall of the roof, but from which I extracted