17.
but he doesn't know it yet".
As indicated, my nodding acquaintanship with the field
began geologically. It is bounded on one side by the
river, so that its lower acres are liable to flood,
while the upper part is bounded by a track just clear of
normal flooding. One old hedge leading from the river
coincides with a parish boundary, and in the summer of
1972 I had taken note of a compacted exposure of large
pebbles which ploughing had revealed in the headland
down in that corner. Early in 1974 I noticed that along
the track bounding the upper acres of the field was a
patch of stones and pebbles for denser than was
warranted by the generally thinly stoned character of
the surrounding alluvium. I had thoughts of boulder
clay or alluvial gravel, and applied my somewhat limited
geological experience to some of the stones. The variety
of size, shape, and mineral content was apparent at a
glance, and one was reminded of the Lea Valley gravels,
or the gravel exposures on view during the construction
of the new Passingford Bridge, not so many miles away.
Apart from white quartz up the four inches long and
some quite bulky Bunter quartzite bearing semi-dreikanter
characteristics, as well as the more usual ovoid shapes,
there was a great variety of flint in every stage of
colour and derived form, one or two being almost as
fresh as if picked out of a Cambridgeshire chalkpit.
Just a few stones transported the imagination far afield
to Northern England, Scotland, even Scandinavia.
But this area seemed suspect, for the patch was quite
well defined, and the general area of disturbed soil
around not heavily charged with pebbles. The time had
arrived for maps to be tracked down, and this entailed
visits to the local library, the municipal offices, and
in particular, the Records Office at Chelmsford.
Clearly a farmhouse had stood on the site. The David
and Charles reprint of the First Edition of the One
Inch Ordnance Survey established that "DOVES" was sited
here around 1800; and a temporary exhibition at the geo-
logical Museum, S.W.I, happened to include an enlarged